


there is something about the way you are

by neuevague



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018), Marvel, Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Deanoru end game, Drug Use, F/F, F/M, Multi, Sex, Violence, im open to criticism but pls be gentle with me, sorry if its absolutely terrible lol, the killing eve au that no one asked for, this is my first fic ever so oh boy hold on to your hats
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:44:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22297285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neuevague/pseuds/neuevague
Summary: An adult Runaways x Killing Eve AU wherein Nico is Eve and Karolina is Villanelle.Rated M because amidst the plot there will be lots of sex... and death, of course.Title is from Unloved's "Sigh (Killing Eve)"I own absolutely nothing here, just an avid fan with enough time on her hands to work around a script
Relationships: Karolina Dean & Nico Minoru, Karolina Dean/Nico Minoru, Nico Minoru/Alex Wilder
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	1. I got so high, I finally felt like myself

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, dear readers. This is my first fic ever. I loved the idea of this so much that despite trying to get other people to write it, it didn't happen, and so now I am making it happen with my very useless and very gay heart. 
> 
> In this AU they’re full grown adults, roughly 27 years old. Karolina grew up rich, the daughter of Frank and Leslie Dean, obscenely rich socialites who shipped her off to boarding school in Russia at the age of 6 because she was not "normal." From school, she follows Villanelle's path of becoming a trained assassin. 
> 
> Nico and her family moved to London when she was a kid because Wizard's HQ operations were moved there. Just like Eve, she works at MI5 and has a morbid fascination with serial killers and assassins. She is not married, but is dating Alex who works at Wizard. Deanoru is obviously end game. 
> 
> Leave comments if you'd like. I promise to read and respond to them...eventually. 
> 
> Chapter title is from DIIV's "Dopamine"

She loves him.

At least, she thinks she does. 

She casts a cursory glance at Alex's sleeping form beside her. He'd spent the night again and at almost a year of dating, she knows it's only a matter of time before he asks her to move in with him. Eventually, in maybe two years, she knows he'll ask her to marry him - and then what? She becomes a stay-at-home mom of 2.5 kids while he makes CFO of Wizard?

She scoffs internally. 

_No, thank you._

But for now, _this is nice_ she thinks. _I love him and maybe that's enough_. 

She casts another glance as he turns on his side and faces away from her. She turns her phone over in her palm and the screen casts a faint glow over her face.

_Maybe just a little bit of fun before starting the day_

She opens her Mobile VPN browser and taps on the only saved bookmark, eyes scanning through a forum for details regarding a conspiracy around a group of assassins known only as Pride. Her eyes flicker across photos from crime scenes; blood splatters, dead victims, bound and gagged and her mind buzzes in intrigue. This isn't something she'd ever share with Alex, share with anyone really. She knows this sort of hobby isn't normal, isn't _decent_, but it feels too damn good to give up. 

Alex shifts awake beside her and she quickly locks her screen before pecking him on the cheek and climbing out of bed. He smiles brightly at her, "morning, babe."

She smiles softly and offers him a quiet "morning" before padding away into the bathroom to get ready for work.

As she showers, her mind swirls with thoughts of assassins, blood and wondering what it must feel like to take another's life. 

* * *

Karolina, or as she now went by, Lucy, was not one for patience. 

She never had been really, but she found that she needed to try to keep a balance, especially if she wanted to keep her job - and her head she thinks grimly. 

She watches her reflection on the display glass in the ice-cream shop as she stands behind a little girl in line. God, she couldn't wait to get out of Vienna. 

She flexes her mouth into a well-practiced smile when the girl turns towards her. The girl stares and turns away.

_Little bitch_

She watches as the little girl smiles at the man at the counter after choosing her flavors and feels her blood boil as she grimaces. 

She pays for her own cone and watches as the young girl precariously walks towards her inattentive parents trying to balance her ridiculously sized ice cream cone.

She zips past her, smiling brightly as she nudges the girl slightly and the ice cream cone drops onto her shirt and finally onto the ground.

_Much better_

She's bored of this city and fucking hates speaking German.

If only she could get a mark that lived in Bora Bora. A vacation sounded great.

_Whatever_

\------------------------------------------------------------------

As soon as she gets to her apartment she grabs an unopened pack of cigarettes from her kitchen and heads to her balcony for a smoke. Jonah had already been by.

A thick envelope full of cash and her next assignment were in a neat pile on her desk, next to a small black briefcase. She rolls her eyes. He could have at least waited to say hello and maybe celebrate with her. 

_Now that sounds like a fantastic idea._

She knows exactly which club will have the best music, the best drugs, and the best selection for her celebration night.

She ducks into a dark alley towards a heavy and pulsating bass. The doorman nods her in - she rolls her eyes again

_A large man with a small dick no doubt, who likely loves the rush of power this insignificant shit job gave him. disgusting._

She flirts her way into a free bag full of mollies, popping two with a vodka shot chaser before scanning the masses of sweaty and gyrating bodies before her.

_Who will be my prey tonight?_

She stops on a couple of models seated in the VIP section, giggling at whatever banal things the offensively nouveau-riche and absolutely troglodytic pro athletes around them are saying.

With a tilt of her head she decides that they will do just nicely. She always loved a bit of a challenge, she thinks as she notes the security guards near them. 

\-------------------------------------------------------

The next morning her eyes flutter awake and she is acutely aware of a mild headache forming and the sickening warmth that indicates that she is definitely not alone in bed. She lifts a draped arm off of her waist and surveys her bed to find both model 1 and model 2 - she couldn't be bothered to ever remember their names really - soundly asleep. She pulls herself from between them and heads to the bathroom to brush her teeth and pull on some clothes. Personal hygiene was important after all, how else could she have such perfect skin, hair and teeth all the time? 

When she exits in her favorite silk robe, she finds that both women are gone and Jonah is sat in her living room, crudely eating pistachios from his pocket. She scowls at him, but greets him in English as was customary for them: "Jonah, did you scare my dates away?"

He shrugs and smiles knowingly, scratching at his salt and pepper beard, "Maybe, but you really don't have time for any of that." She furrows her brows dramatically, "You don't know that, one of them could've been The One and you would've been my best man, huh?"

He laughs heartily, "You don't even remember their names!" he asserts.

She shrugs and takes a seat on the chair across from him. "So, spit it out Jonah. Why are you here?"

He sighs, "You were supposed to be on a plane to Florence this morning Lucy. This is not...ideal."

She rolls her eyes, "So what? I'll leave later today and get to my assignment tomorrow. What better time than the weekend anyway?"

He sighs again, 'You know they don't like these deviations."

She gets up and sits on the arm rest of the couch Jonah is sitting on, roughly ruffling his neatly cut hair. 

"You worry too much. It'll give you more horrible wrinkles than the ones you already have. I will deliver the best possible outcome, as I always do. Now, get the hell out of my apartment. Please" she smiles down at him.

He puts his hands up defensively before quickly getting up and heading towards the front door. He pauses in the doorway before exiting, "Don't forget, you still have those loose ends to tie up... from the last assignment, yes?" he says slowly while eyeing her seriously. 

She holds his gaze, "Yes, I know" she replies sharply. 

He shuts the door and she groans loudly. After last night she was ready to be in an excellent mood, but he'd gone and spoiled it. A second later she lights up again, now that she'd be on a later flight this evening, she had time to shop for her trip!

She smiled brightly. She loved Italy. 

* * *

Nico hated that she had to be at work on a Saturday morning, but the late message sent last night meant it was an absolute emergency. She rushes into the office, having taken a much longer shower than anticipated and she was running late and absolutely starving. 

She quickly catches up to her friend and the office assistant Molly who is in the middle of taking a large bite of an already half-eaten croissant. She stops her and greets her, "Molly..." 

Molly nods and takes another smaller bite. She eyes her cautiously, "Nico..."

Nico stares at her mouth chewing and decides she's not above begging. "Please Molls, can I have the rest of that?"

Molly rolls her eyes and slowly holds the croissant out towards Nico before shoving the rest of it into her mouth, "Nope!" she says around the mouthful.

Nico frowns and Molly laughs before grabbing a small brown bag holding more croissants from her purse. She hands Nico the bag with a pointed 'You're Welcome."

They enter the meeting quietly, well as quietly as they can anyway. Molly goes towards the back of the room, ready to take notes on her laptop, while Nico takes a seat next to her friend and boss, Victor Mancha. Sitting across from them is their boss Dale Yorkes, the most boring man she had ever met really, and an unimpressed tall white woman that she'd never seen before, but her gaze was as cold as ice. 

Dale clears his throat awkwardly. "Well, thank you for giving us your Saturday."

Janet looks at her watch as if she wished she were anywhere but here. 

Dale sighs and continues, "Turns out people are still murderous bastards on the weekend." 

He turns to introduce the woman to his left, "This is Janet Stein, Head of the Russian Desk." He then gestures around them towards the others. "You've met Victor Mancha." Victor smiles nervously. 

"And his late assistant..."

Nico jumps to straighten her posture. "Nico Minoru. My apologies. I'm s-"

Dale interrupts, "They assess and provide diplomatic protection for visitors to the UK and will be your liason."

Janet nods and begins to speak, "Good morning-"

Everyone turns suddenly as the bag in Nico's hand crinkles loudly in her desperate attempt to get a small piece of croissant. She stops abruptly and Janet continues,

"There's been an assassination in Vienna."

Nico's ears perk up immediately. Suddenly work on a Saturday sounded like the best day ever.


	2. this night has opened my eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from The Smith's song by the same name. 
> 
> Nico finds out that she's right and gets fired. Lucy does her job very well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, dear readers.  
I'm so sorry for the delay! I wanted to get this out much sooner, but well, shit happens? 
> 
> This chapter concludes episode 1.
> 
> Thank you for the comments. I'll be responding to them shortly :)

After the debriefing - Victor Kedrin, a Russian politician with a knack for sex-trafficking and teenaged girlfriends was murdered by a small, almost imperceptible hole in his femoral artery (which Nico thinks is possibly the coolest thing she’s ever heard, everyone else - not so much) - Nico rushes after Janet before she exits the room. 

“It was probably a woman you know. Kedrin was a well known misogynist. He may not have considered a passing woman a threat…”

Victor watches them from the door.

Janet looks at her curiously, “Thank you, Nico” she replies cooly before leaving. 

Victor walks back towards Nico who is grinning madly.

“She said Nico.”

“Congratulations” he retorts dryly.

He points towards her bag of croissants, “Give me some or I’ll fire you.”

She rolls her eyes good-naturedly before handing him the bag. “I want to meet the witness. If I’m right then - “ Victor interrupts her almost immediately, “No. Not your job. We get her secure, get her some clothes. Don’t make this a thing and just do your job.” He looks at her sternly. 

She nods before they head out towards the offices, passing by a stiff-looking Dale who marches away from them as soon as he catches their eyes. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back in Paris, Lucy arrives at her apartment building carrying arm fulls of shopping bags. She smiles at an elderly woman carrying heavy trash bags down the stairs. 

The woman stops as before they cross paths, smiling at her. “C’etait bien court ton voyage.”  **(Your trip was short) **

Lucy easily responds, “Les recontres professionelles sont meilleur face-a-face.”  **(Business meetings are better face to face) **

Madame Tattevin nods gently, “Ah. Tu es tres chic ma grande”  **(You’re very stylish kid)** she says before starting to head down the stairs again. 

Lucy watches her go, calling over only once she’s reached the ground floor and has an entrance door propped open. “Tu veux de l’aide avec tes sacs?”  **(You want help with your bags?)**

Madame Tattevin turns towards her shouting “Conasse!” ** (Asshole)** before exiting. 

Lucy’s smile drops and she heads up towards her apartment. 

She starts to put away her shopping before stopping to change her clothes. She strips and pulls her long blonde waves out of her bun, tossing her head back to shake them out. She walks up to her full-length mirror and inspects her body, running a smooth palm over her face. Her skin is flawless, smooth and smattered with the lightest of freckles.

Her blue eyes roam her seemingly radiant face and she sighs breathily. “Wow...Beautiful.” 

She checks the delicate gold and diamond watch on her wrist, knowing she needs to really start getting ready to leave. 

She opens a drawer in her wardrobe that is lined with weapons neatly grouped by type. She reaches for the small briefcase Jonah had left her and opens it to retrieve a small postcard. The postcard has images of Tuscan villas and rows of grape vines on it with two simple words written on the back: Miss you.

She scans the borders, eyes catching a 12-digit code neatly printed in a small font. 

She walks to her laptop on her desk and opens it to type in the same code, eyes squinting over the information appearing before her. She stares at a photo of a smiling man, Cesare Greco.

“Aw. Nice face.”

She places the postcard in the trash bin next to her and returns to the briefcase, retrieving the items inside and placing them into a travel satchel. 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nico waits in the kitchen as she warms a cup of coffee in the microwave, the dull hum fading into the background as she stares off pensively, thinking about the case that’d been presented before her. The witness being in London felt too serendipitous and how crazy would it be if she were right and the killer is a woman. She couldn’t explain why, but she felt it in her bones and wanted to confirm her suspicions, especially to Janet. She wanted to impress her somehow. Prove something. 

The loud ding brings her back from her reverie. She walks back to her desk, taking a seat next to Molly. 

“So, her name is Kasia Molkowska. And we need 2 officers on each shift.” Molly says as she turns to face her. 

Nico grimaces at the taste of her coffee, “Where do they want her overnight?” 

Molly looks unsure, eyebrows furrowing. “Er, I don’t know. They actually haven’t transferred her from the station yet.”

“Really? Hammersmith?” Nico checks her watch, “So she’s still there?”

Molly nods slowly. 

Nico straightens out and hops out of her seat, “Ok, um, you know what? I’m gonna pop down there quickly.”

Molly watches stares up at her, tucking a loose strand of curly brown hair behind her ear “Why?”

Nico averts her gaze, “No reason! Just uh, get those officers assigned to her and I’ll sign off.”

She grabs her long gray duster from the back of her chair and pull it on, pulling her long black hair out from the collar. 

Victor walks in as she does so and eyes her suspiciously, “Where are you going?”

“To the bathroom.”

“You finish the report?” he asks crossing his tweed jacket covered arms over his chest.

“Uhmhmm” she responds easily. 

He nods before smiling eagerly, “By the way it was a man, you were wrong.”

Nico shakes her head incredulously, “How do you know?”

“CCTV got back from Vienna, Dale just told me so.”

“Did you see it?”

“No, but Dale did and told. Nico, there’s a difference between thinking it’s a woman and wanting it to be a woman.”

Molly looks between them puzzled, “Who's a woman?”

Nico sighs and Victor walks towards the lifts. “I want that CCTV!” she shouts before he disappears from view. 

She turns to Molly, “I’m going to the station. Don’t tell Victor, You’re the best. I love you. You’re amazing!” and with a flurry, she’s gone.

Molly sits back at her desk, still confused and whispers an unheard “Bye” to the empty space next to her. 

\----------------------

Nico sits patiently next to a translator named Ethel. The kind older woman smiles at her apologetically. Kasia, the witness, is rocking back and forth in a chair, muttering to herself. 

“Sorry. She’s unintelligible and mainly swearing.”

Nico nods, “That’s okay. I just need to know if she is aware of anyone who might want to hurt her while she’s in the country? 

Ethel turns to her and asks her in Polish if she does. 

Kasia laughs and starts singing a Polish drinking song in response. 

Ethel shakes her head and shrugs. 

Nico turns to a young guard by the door, “Poor thing, could you get her some tea?”

He stares before reluctantly leaving them. 

She turns to Ethel. “Has she mentioned Vienna? Anything about her boyfriend’s killer?”

Ethel shakes her head, “Either that they were drunk, or she wants to be drunk, and something about a plank. I’m sorry.”

Nico nods. “Ask her if it was a man or a woman?”

Ethel turns to Kasia and asks her the question, but Kasia just laughs again, repeating in Polish “What a plank. Psycho.” 

Max returns with the tea and places it on the table in front of Kasia. 

Nico watches her before addressing Max “You know, We need to get her to a facility.”

She gets up and leaves the room as Ethel and Max shrug at one another. 

\-----------------

Nico enters the bar and easily finds Alex and Dom throwing darts near the back. 

She walks up eagerly, kissing Alex chastely on the mouth and hugging Dom before telling them that she needs their help. 

They abandon their game and head towards a table at the far end of the bar where it’s less crowded. Nico pulls out her phone and a pair of headphones, handing them to Dom.

“ I need you to translate this. The normal translator, I don’t know, she’s old and maybe just doesn’t know Polish slang, but we can’t figure it out.”

Dom nods and begins listening as Kasia’s voice filters into the earpieces. 

He laughs quietly, “Whoa.”

He continues to concentrate, “It sounds like she’s describing someone. Tall, Dark and…”he trails off laughing. 

Nico and Alex turn to him. “What?”

Dom scratches the back of his head uncomfortably. “Eh, I don’t like to make these kind of comments, but she said ‘flat-chested, small breasts’. 

Nico nods slowly, remembering Ethel’s words. “Like a plank?”

He nods, “Yeah, exactly. A small-breasted psycho.”

Nico excitedly kisses Alex and then kisses Dom on the forehead before rushing out of the bar. 

She grabs her phone dialing quickly as she shuffles into the alleyway next to the pub. 

“Hey, I was counting on you not having a life. Why are you still at the office?” she asks, ‘

Molly, on the other end laughs, “My sister and her arsehole baby are staying with me while she goes for interviews. I get more sleep here honestly. What do you want?”

“Okay, can you pull up Martina Polsen from the registry and any other active female assassins under the age of 45 on there?” she responds watching as a couple pull into the alley to share a cigarette, laughing amongst themselves.

Molly types away at her computer, “Okay, I’ve got it. Go.”

Nico blushes as she poses her question, “Okay. How big are her breasts?”

Molly stutters as she abruptly stops typing, “O-okay I know you like assassins, but I refuse to talk about them in that way.They’re people too you know!”

“Molly!”

She sighs before continuing, “Massive. She appears to have massive, pendulous breasts. Is that doing it for you?”

Nico sighs, “Thank you. Are there any others on file?”

Molly hits a succession of keys before responding, “There are only two others on file. They’re Katrina Valtrinski and Wendi Helmsman. What’s this about?”

Nico rubs at the bridge of her nose. She’s disappointed, but she knows that she’s at least onto  _ something  _ so far. “They’re both dead. Are there any alerts up for new ones?”

Molly expels a loud breath, “No.”

Nico sighs dejectedly, “Okay, thanks. Don’t tell anyone I asked for that.”

Molly laughs, “Of course. All of our hotlines are confidential, madam.”

Nico grins into her phone. “Piss off…. Thank you.”

She hangs up and heads off onto the sidewalk. She needed to get home. Maybe she could find something on the forums tonight. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lucy pulls up on a dirt road, stopping near a row of trees lining an old fence. She dismounts from her motorbike, removing her helmet and carefully placing it in the compartment behind the seat. She pulls a small baguette from her bag, crushing a tomato over it and taking a quick bite. She holds small binoculars to her eyes and gazes out beyond the fence line. She looks at a huge villa, spanning across the land before her. Cars are pulling up to the entrance and people stand, chatting animatedly in the garden. 

She places the binoculars in her bag before retrieving a beautiful diamond encrusted hair clip which she carefully uses to tie back her golden waves into a perfectly neat bun. She places the bag in the compartment under the seat and begins walking towards the villa. 

She watches as there is a break in arrivals and uses the lack of prying eyes to climb up the exterior drain pipe and onto the roof. She quietly makes her way along the corridor, passing an oblivious security guard She drops down in front of a balcony, peering out at the guests dancing and chatting as a band plays in the background. She narrows her eyes, catching sight of Cesare Greco amongst the guests. He is laughing heartily as children, likely his grandchildren, shoot him with water pistols. 

She smiles to herself. 

_ Easy _

She enters the room adjacent to the balcony and finds a wardrobe. She opens it and grimaces at the clothing inside. 

“Bambini! Non potete andare li!”  **(Not allowed up here kids!)** a voice calls out, footsteps booming towards the room.

She pauses as the footsteps grow closer.

The man arrives in the corridor and enters the room, noticing that the wardrobe doors are open. He looks around the room before leaving. 

A suitcase falls over from the corner of the room and two fingers poke out, Lucy effortlessly pulling the zipper apart and crawling out. 

She pulls on a dress from the wardrobe and heads downstairs to join the party. 

She smiles as she passes by other guests. Gracefully declining appetizers and drinks. 

She spots Greco laughing with his wife and family members in a corner when his grandson, Davide, dashes past her and gets him with the water pistol laughing raucously.. 

Greco laughs with him as he grabs an ice bucket and dumps it over him.

The family laughs behind him as Davide chastises his grandfather before storming towards the house.

Lucy follows him and approaches him gently.

Lucy smiles at him, “Vuoi fargli uno scherzo?”  **(Do you want to play a trick on him?)**

Davide grins in response. 

\-----------

Lucy sits next to the open balcony door and looks over at Davide standing on the opposing balcony doors.

He shouts down to the party. “Nonno! Ho un regalo per te!”  **(Grandpa! I have a present for you!)**

Greco looks up before excusing himself to head towards the villa for Davide’s present. 

Lucy rushes Davide towards the bathroom and tell him to hide. When he refuses she warns him, “Se provi solo a fiatare ti ammazzo anche a te ok.  **(If you make a sound, I will kill you too, ok?)**

She closes the door on him and sits at the bench at the foot of the bed, absently playing with the threads on the sheets.

Greco enters and is surprised to see her there. They exchange pleasantries before he asks for Davide. Lucy calmly explains that she’s locked him in the bathroom before changing the subject to ask about the sheets.

_ Idiot _

“É veramente uno scialle magnifico questo. Chi lo ha fatto?” ( **That is such a beautiful throw. Who made it?)** she asks as she slides a finger across the fabric. 

“Una designer. Liliana Rizzari. Fa solo lavori in seta” ( **A designer, Liliana Rizzari. She only works with silk)** He responds eyeing her. 

She nods and heads towards the door, closing it in an instant before walking back towards Greco.

He smiles, “Tu sei il mio regalo?”  **(So, are you my gift?)**

She smiles back. 

He reaches out to touch her hair and tells her how beautiful she is. 

Her smile drops as she responds, “Dovresti imparare a chiedere prima di toccare una persona.” ( **You should really ask before you touch a person)**

She reaches back to undo her hair clip, stabbing it into Greco’s eye as the band’s music crescendos loudly outside. He screams in pain as the hidden syringe releases poison, a loud squelch as his eye bulges from the trauma. Blood begins to drip from the side of his face, staining his clothing and the floor below him and he drops to his knees before her. Shocked and unable to move. 

She watches as the life fades from his remaining eye and delighting as his body drops fully to the ground. She smiles and leaves the room, satisfied with her job. 

Davide slowly exits the bathroom, calling for his grandfather, “Nonno?”

He rushes out ready to surprise his grandfather and stops dead in his tracks, his eyes widening in horror at the sight before him. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nico sits at her desk in her apartment’s study, desperately researching with stacks of books and DVDs about female serial killers strewn about. She’s staring at image search results for ‘femoral artery’ and holding a sharp pocket knife against her thigh, the tip of it creating a small indentation into smooth pale skin. She changes tabs to the photo of Kedrin’s body, splayed out on the ground in Vienna, blood pooling out onto the street below him, staining the road crimson as onlookers stare. 

She jumps when Alex appears handing her a glass of wine. She feels the warm trickle of blood running from where the knife had been against her thigh and swipes at it with her robe. 

Alex gazes at her computer screen, grimacing immediately. “Jesus christ.”

Nico looks back towards her screen, “Yeah this is from that case at work. All of that from a tiny puncture”

Alex starts, “It’s so awful“

_ It’s so impressive,  _ she thinks. 

She pauses “awful, yeah”

Alex stares at her quizzically.

Nico smiles sheepishly, and clears her throat, “How would you kill me? If you could?”

Alex scratches his brow, “Um, I have no idea. Push you down the stairs?” 

Nico scoffs, “No seriously, you’d get caught immediately.”

Alex shrugs, “I don’t know. Flatter you to death” He laughs, “Okay, How would you kill me then?”

He takes a seat behind her on the loveseat as she turns to fully face him. 

“I'd paralyse you with Saxitoxin and suffocate you in your sleep, chop you into the smallest bits I could manage, boil you down, put you in a blender, then take you to work in a flask and flush you down a restaurant toilet.” 

Alex smirks, “You’ve really thought about that haven’t you?”

Nico grins, “Eh, it’s smart though isn’t it?

He laughs, “Absolutely. I’ve got to head into the office early tomorrow, so I’m heading to bed. You coming?”

“In a bit, yeah.” He kisses the top of her head and she feels like sometimes she really wishes he would spend more time in his shitty apartment, but then feels guilty at the thought and pushes it deep down so that she can focus on her research. 

\-----

The next morning she meets with Victor, ready to bring her theories to him. Of course, he doesn’t want any part of it. 

Victor sighs, “Nico you’ve officially gone mad.”

Nico sighs, “Hear me out! It’s a woman and somehow, someone, somewhere is trying to cover it up! These have got to be related, Greco yesterday, Kedrin earlier this week. She’s new and she’s prolific and- ”

Victor waves his hands frantically to stop her. “No, no, no. This ends now. You’re going to go to the hospital, make sure the witness is comfortable and then leave and go back to your regular job. Listen, I’m sorry if your boyfriend at home is so boring that you have to try to make work more interesting, but they have the CCTV and you’re wrong. Just let it go. “

Victor’s words sting her a bit, but she won’t let it go. Can’t let it go. 

Growing up, she’d been around technology so much that by the age of 10 she was coding and building her own websites. Her parents, the founders of one of the world’s largest electronics companies, expected nothing less of course. In high school, she would hack into cheating boyfriends’ phones and emails, for a fee of course, and got her own sense of vigilante justice. She knew then that she wanted to be a spy. Her parents had other ideas, the world of intelligence too risky for their daughter, their heir, who would one day run the company. When she refused to work for them and got a job at MI5, she thought it would be her gateway, but she never knew it would take this long for her to get noticed, for her to get to a case that would help her get out of the office sidelines and into the field. She knew this was her shot, if she impressed Janet with this, maybe she’d finally be good enough to join the ranks in MI6.

\-----------

“Just pretend you’re her cousin. We only need two, maybe three questions worth of time and then we’re out. I promise.” she says to Dom as they ride the elevator in the hospital. 

Nico approaches the nurses station, “Hi, I’m with the security team monitoring Kasia Molkowska. This is her relative, here for a visit”

The nurse nods, “Last on the left, ask for Nurse Watkins.”

Nico heads towards the room, showing her ID to the police officer guarding it. The nurse walks out and let’s them know that she’ll notify them when Kasia is ready for visitors. 

Nico clasps her hands loosely together, “Here, take a seat. I’m just gonna pop into the loo quickly while we wait.” 

Dom worriedly whispers, “Is this legal?”

Nico shushes him, “It’s fine. Just wait here, okay?”

He nods and takes a seat as she walks off towards the restrooms. Inside, there are two cubicles and while one is out of order, the other is occupied. 

She stands at the sink as she waits, staring at her face and unsatisfied with her appearance. She’s not wearing makeup today, her skin clear but dull and her eyes have bags under them, likely from the almost sleepless nights since she’s been looking into this case. She’s never been more grossly fascinated by anything in her entire life. 

She washes her hands and decides to take her hair out of its messy bun, running her fingers through to fluff it up a bit. As she does so, the toilet from the occupied stall flushes and out comes a blonde woman dressed in a nurse’s uniform. She steps up to the sink and stares at Nico as she pulls at her hair to wrap it into a bun again. 

Nico stops and looks at her catching her eye in the mirror, “Are you alright?”

The blonde says nothing as she walks up to the door. She stops before opening it and looks at Nico again.

“Wear it down.” she says softly before exiting. 

Nico looks back at her own reflection bemusedly. She smiles to herself and puts it back down before walking out of the restroom. 

She walks back towards the nurse’s station, noticing that there’s no one there. The phone rings in the distance, but she can tell something isn’t right. Her heart starts to pound in her chest as she turns the corner to find the police offer that had been guarding Kasia’s door face down on the ground. 

She rushes into the room to find the nurse lying in the vacant bed next to Kasia’s, blood streaking from her limp body onto the bed and floor. 

Finally her eyes land on Kasia, blood gushing from her slit throat, gurgling as she struggles to speak. Nico rushes to her side, her eyes wide in panic. She knows she can’t stop this kind of bleeding. 

“Kasia! Kasia! Stay with me! Please oh god oh god. Kasia!”

She reaches for the alarm button and pushes it repeatedly, screaming out towards the open door, “Somebody help me! Help!! Somebody help me!”

Kasia tries to speak again as Nico holds onto her throat, applying slight pressure, but promptly collapses back, the life fading from her eyes.

Dom enters the room, dropping the snacks he’d been carrying, a look of horror on his face. 

\--------------------------------

Despite being fired immediately following her statement to the authorities, Nico wasn’t spiraling just yet. She’d sent Alex off to bed, while she sat in the study downstairs. She needed the time alone to process. She’s almost a third of the way through a bottle of cab when her doorbell rings.

She walks up to the door, opening it to find Janet Stein, her piercing blue eyes taking in Nico’s black sweats, messy bun and fuzzy purple slippers. 

Nico clears her throat, completely surprised to see her after her disgraceful firing. Dale had ripped her a new one after all, especially once she’d offered up her theory of the killer being a woman, but she’d gotten the chance to call him a dick-swab so who was the real winner here?

“Hi” she says blandly.

Janet furrows her brows, “Hi. Do you need anything from the store?”

Nico looks at her quizzically, “Uhm. I guess some milk?”

Janet nods her head for Nico to follow her and Nico quickly grabs her coat and keys before scrambling out to follow. 

Janet lights a cigarette as they walk. “Married?” she asks with an exhale of white smoke.

Nico shakes her head, “Uhm, no, not yet anyway. You?”

Janet inhales again before responding, “A few times, yeah.”

They reach the store with ease. Janet tossing her cigarette before entering the store. Nico shuffles from one foot to the other, “So it was really nice of you to come for...whatever this is. Do you want some milk?”

Janet watches the clerk flipping through a magazine, her gaze continuing to wander as she speaks to Nico. “We think she’s been operating for two years. Across ten countries. She’s highly skilled, as yet untraceable and frankly, she’s starting to show off.”

Nico’s eyes widen.

Janet continues, turning to face her fully, “When you’re feeling better, I’d love to take you out to lunch at the Purple Penguin. Thursday. 9 AM. I’ll wait for ten minutes.”

Nico nods as she continues. 

“Buy some milk. Or he’ll think you’re having an affair.”

Nico laughs nervously, but reaches into the refrigerator facing her to grab a carton anyway. 

“Oh, I don’t think he’d think that.”

Janet smirks at her before turning to head towards the doors, “They all think we’re having affairs before they think we’re secret agents.”

Janet swiftly exits then and Nico stands completely still, staring at the milk in her hands.

_ Well, shit. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it.


	3. when a woman is around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico realizes that she's both a secret agent and an idiot. Lucy is bored, again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gentle readers,
> 
> I'm so sorry this took so long! I keep hoping to be able to post more than one chapter a week, but it's likely that this is the way things will stay. The chapter title is from Unloved's song by the same name. 
> 
> Next chapter is half-way done and will be posted soon.
> 
> As always, thank you for reading.

The man cowers in the dimly lit office as Lucy traipses over to his figure. He’s gasping for air, struggling against the blood loss. 

He gasps, a strangled wet cough escaping his lips, and reaches out speaking Bulgarian.

“I don’t speak Bulgarian” she responds in English.

“I have children. Please!” He begs, hands gripping onto the desk to help stabilize him. 

She tuts and wraps his own tie around his neck, pulling tightly. 

He struggles against her weakly, rasping out “Why are you doing this?”

She sighs, “I have absolutely no idea.” With a surprising strength, she lifts him using the knotted tie effectively choking the life from his body. He drops limply, blood pooling onto the ground from the gunshot wound to his chest and she sighs again, this time blowing a wet raspberry. She reaches up and touches her smarting eye where he’d managed to land a hit before she shot him. 

_ Bastard. This is definitely going to bruise. _

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nico arrives at the restaurant and awkwardly approaches Janet who’s already seated at a corner table. Elegant as ever in a cool gray toned power suit under a long black coat, Janet is pristine and Nico feels slightly out of place in her plain white oxford shirt tucked into black pants with suspenders and her usual messy top bun. But maybe that sense of effortless cool authority came with being a well-seasoned spy. Maybe she’d develop it herself one day, and as she stumbles over the table leg and into her chair, she thinks  _ maybe not _ . 

They speak almost simultaneously.

“Hi - “

“Er Hello, how - “

Janet sighs after a beat, “I’m not good at small talk. So you’re originally from Los Angeles, no?”

“Correct. My parents moved us here when I was 6 and other than when I went off to college, I haven’t left since.” she responds, taking a sip of water once she’s finished. Her nerves quickly making her mouth exceedingly dry. 

Janet nods, “Right. Well, did you know that when you get fired, your computer and files are swept?” 

Nico’s mind floods in panic. _ Shit. _

Janet pulls a compilation of photos and documents from a folder on the table. 

It contains the research Nico had been doing around finding the female assassin responsible for Kedrin’s, and now Kasia's, deaths. 

She laughs nervously when she realizes the embarrassing photos of Dale that she and Victor collected were not part of this file. No one else needed to bear witness to Dale wearing jeggings when he’d ruined his pants after an “incident” and had resorted to the only item left in the office lost and found. 

“Did you do this?”

“Yes.”

“And no one asked you to do it? No one else has seen it?”

Nico nods in the affirmative.

“Why?”

Nico blows out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, “Well I’ve always been interested in what makes a person, a woman, able to do... this. I believe that there’s a female assassin that’s been operating internationally and targeting influential people. She doesn’t have a signature, but definitely has style and I don’t know  _ who or what  _ is behind her, but she isn’t slowing down and that’s something that interests me, even if it apparently means I’m crazy. But I honestly don’t give a shit anymore and she’s outsmarting everyone and she deserves to do or kill whoever the fuck she wants….” she takes a deep breath, “Thank you.”

Janet quirks an eyebrow at her, smirks and asks “Can I show you something?”

\-------------

Janet uses a small fob to open a heavy frosted glass door, allowing Nico to step inside before shutting it. A loud buzzer sounds as they enter and Nico jumps comically. They walk through a dim corridor and into a large, white-walled main room containing desks, computer workstations and a small attached kitchen.

“Wow. What is this?” Nico asks as she scans the room, reading the scrawled notes, documents and photographs lining the massive presentation board at the center of the room.

“I have someone that keeps tabs on anything that might lend itself to your theory.”

Nico’s eyes widen. “But isn’t this something you’re supposed to be looking into officially?”

Janet sighs, “I’ve tried but no one’s too enthusiastic about it. Which could be read two ways: I'm a naturally suspicious person with the budget to look into it, or this is an unofficial official tap on the shoulder.” 

Nico continues to gaze at the board before turning towards Janet, “Why me though? I’m sure there are more qualified people out there.”

“You’ve done the research and you’re clearly intuitive and able to make insane suggestions. Not to mention - and don’t take this the wrong way - but you’ve just been fired. No one really cares what you do next.” She shrugs. 

“Thanks? I think…” Nico trails off.

“The pay is shit and there’s no ladder. You’re completely deniable.”

Nico chuckles darkly. “Great, it’s like I’ve walked into my own brain. And you want me to what? Find her?”

Janet nods, “She’s on some sort of payroll. There’s a pattern, we just haven’t figured it out yet. But if we can get her, it’ll be a start.”

The buzzer sounds loudly again, a tall and muscular young man, about the same age as Nico with short brown hair enters, startled and wide eyed, “Oh god.”

“Sorry” Janet smiles ruefully.

“Chase, this is Nico. She’ll be joining you, hopefully.” She turns to Nico, “Chase is our intel specialist. He’s been the one gathering the evidence.”

Chase approaches Nico and offers an awkward handshake, “Hi”

Nico reciprocates, “Hi.”

Janet continues, “I need people to put it together now.” 

Chase scoffs, “People? You can have two.” Janet narrows her eyes. 

Nico looks between them as they stare one another down. 

_ This is going to be fun. _

_ \--------------------------------------- _

Lucy enters her apartment, not entirely surprised to see Jonah there. 

“Letting yourself into my apartment and drinking from a tiny cup doesn’t make you intimidating by the way. It’s just rude” she says as she walks past Jonah standing in her kitchen, dressed in his overcoat as if ready to leave at any given moment. 

“I’m not trying to intimidate you. What happened to your eye?” he responds, eyes scanning over her, her right eye slightly bruised a dark rosy shade.

“I wanted it to match my jacket.” She deadpans. He looks down at her dark red leather jacket and shrugs before turning back towards the blender he’s holding.

“Do you want a smoothie?”

“No” she huffs as she flops onto her couch. 

He approaches cautiously, setting his drink down on the coffee table. “I want you to get assessed again. London was meant to look like a suicide.”

Lucy stares up at the ceiling as she responds, “It didn’t?”

Jonah sighs, “She slit her own throat?”

Lucy shrugs, “It happens.”

“And killed four other people? Slip of the hand? Why are you being so naughty?” he continues. 

She smiles brightly, “I’m excited about my next one.”

“No. No more targets until you are assessed.”

Lucy pouts, “But this one has asthma. You know how much I like the breathy ones. Hmm?”

Jonah shakes his head sternly, “No.”

She sighs wearily, “Will it be Jerome?”

Jonah nods, “Yes.”

She frowns as she sits up, “Great.”

\--------------------------------------

Jerome sits in a stiff brown leather chair across from Lucy who’s casually draped across the couch. She’s watching him with blank eyes and a bored expression. She hated these assessments and hated Jerome the most. 

“Well, thank you for making the effort Lucy.”

She laughs mirthlessly. 

“ How do you feel about the people who you work for?”

“I respect their privacy.” she responds breezily, watching Jerome scribble notes against a pad of paper. .

“Do you have any interest in why you are asked to do what you do? There are concerns about your state of mind.”

“Okay.”

“Have you been feeling any anxieties or stress recently?”

“I had quite a heavy period last week, but other than that, I think I'm okay.” She says with a forced smile. 

“What do you see in this picture?” Jerome holds up a drawing of a woman with thick black hair.

She inhales and exhales heavily as he waits.

“That is not Xavin.”

“Who is it?” he asks.

“My mother.”

She chuckles loudly after a beat. “Just kidding. My mother had red and shitty hair.”

“Yes. I see what you mean. Thank you, Lucy. But I won’t sign you off.” He responds before getting up and exiting. 

Lucy huffs and lies flat on the couch until Jonah enters the room minutes later.

“What were you two doing in there?” she asks suspiciously. 

“We are doing you a favor. The security for this job is far too tight anyway.”

She scoffs as he continues. “I worry about you, you know? Take some time, do something...normal.”

He pats her on the head before leaving. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nico sits in the same room, watching as Chase projects various photographs of victims across a screen in front of them. To her surprise, both Victor and Molly are sat beside her as Janet reads the victims’ names and information aloud to them. 

“Susa Maron, found hanging in a ladies' toilet in a Japanese airport.”

“Boris Ivanovich, humanitarian aid. Killed in his hotel bedroom in Budapest.”

Victor interrupts, “Why a woman?”

Janet continues, “He had 24-hour security and the only people who entered his room were hotel maids.” 

“Okay.” he acquiesces. 

“Cesare Greco. Mafia. Had recently and violently taken over a drug cartel in Sicily. Killed at his anniversary party in Tuscany. Now, his wife said she saw a blonde woman wearing one of her dresses.And a kid said a blonde woman was playing a game with him in the same room where Greco was killed with a hairpin moments later.”

Victor interrupts again, “So witnesses saw a woman wearing a dress and playing with children.

Very suspicious.”

Nico pipes up this time, “Sort of ignoring the hairpin thing there.”

“Okay. But neither wife or child actually witnessed the kill, so No one witnessed any of the others either.” he responds. 

Nico can feel herself getting slightly annoyed by his disbelief, “- Except for Kasia.”

“Who was full-on murdered,” Molly says with a frown. 

“But didn't Kasia say the killer was a brunette?”

Nico signs, “ Oh, come on. She would have disguised herself.

“Or it's a different person.” Victor offers. 

“Any witnesses from the hospital at all?” He asks.

“There was no one in the corridor at the time of the murder besides the security guards and the nurse.” Chase responds.

“Who were all killed.So nothing - to implicate the same woman.” Victor continues. 

Nico sighs, “Except that Kedrin was killed by a woman, and the witness to that kill was then murdered, so it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. Other than that, can you give me a single discernable motive for one person to kill all these people? Why don't you want to believe they're all the same woman?”

“Because the moment any of us want to believe anything, we've undermined this entire investigation.” Victor says crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Yes, but we have to follow through” Nico asserts.

“Look, I'm not denying your theory, but you have to be open to the possibility that what you have here is a series of random attacks that you are loosely hanging together with a pretty ribbon.” Victor says sternly. “You can’t lead a team on assumptions.”

Nico scoffs and she turns to Chase, “Have you got a bathroom in here?”

He nods, “Yeah, let me show you.”

The obnoxiously loud buzzer sounds as they exit.

They reach the small bathroom space and Nico eyes him questioningly when he produces a roll of toilet paper from one of his pockets, but takes it nonetheless. 

Through the door she asks, “Chase, can you get the names and photo IDs of the nurses on duty at the hospital that night? In fact, all the female nurses working at the hospital, whether they were working on Kasia's ward or not.”

“Sure” he responds, leaning against the door. “Why?”

“There was a young woman, a nurse, who left the bathroom before I did. Maybe she could have seen something.” 

“Alright.” He nods as she exits.

They get back to the main room and Nico pauses to look around before turning her attention to Molly who is idly picking at a muffin, still sat in her seat. 

“Where's Victor?”

“He left in a sulk.” She responds with a shrug before shoving a piece of muffin into her mouth. 

Nico sighs and heads outside, finding Victor smoking a cigarette near the entry doors. 

“Oi! Are you serious? I’ve had your back for five years, ever since I started this job fresh out of uni and you decide to run away because you refuse to see things from my perspective?”

He nods his head silently.

Nico scoffs, completely aggravated by his behavior. “Jesus! We need to focus on her to figure out the motive.” 

Victor shakes his head, “What do we care about her? She's the lackey. You need to focus on who's running her. She's irrelevant.”

Nico grabs his cigarette from his hand, pulling it up to her own lips. With an exhale, “She's completely relevant.”

Victor sighs, grabs another cigarette from his pack and lights it before continuing, “Either they have something on her, controlling her, or they're lavishing her with something. It could be anyone.”

“If they are random, then fine. But if they're not, that means someone's plan is going really well. These people are powerful and particular and, so far, completely invisible.

Which means they're probably everywhere.Our only visible contact is her. And that is why we have to focus on everything we know about her in order to get to them.” Nico counters. 

Victor sighs, but gives in. “Okay, so what do we know about her?”

Nico smiles.

\---------------------------------------------------------

Nico sits across from Chase back in the main office room. She inhales and takes a beat before addressing him, “Chase, can you get into medical and prison records?”

He smirks cockily,”No wall I can't scale.”

“Okay, I want you to search for any young women who have been detained, hospitalized, or whispered about displaying violent or psychopathic tendencies between the ages of 16 and 45.”

“Where?” 

“The world”

He stops typing and looks at her like she’s grown a third head, “That’s insane!”

“Wall too high?” Nico says with a cocked eyebrow.

He shakes his head, “It would take me months.”

Nico waves him off, “That's fine. I can even help you when I have some free time, of course.”

She turns towards Molly. “Call Dale tonight and invite him for a drink. I want to know what happened with that CCTV.”

Molly groans, “What? Oh, no. He'll think it's really weird - and he'll never agree to it.”

Nico smiles, “Yes he will. Just tell him it’s a goodbye drink. I need that CCTV - I just want to get a look at her.” She turns her attention back to Chase, “Chase, when do you think I can get those hospital IDs by?” 

Still typing, he responds, “This evening.”

Molly looks up from her phone and laughs, “Dale’s already at the pub tragically. Just go and we’ll catch you up.”

Nico nods and gathers her coat before exiting.

\---------------

“Hey Dale!” she exclaims as she takes a seat across from him, Victor following close behind. “What a coincidence!”

“Small world.” he says blandly, taking a small swig from his glass. 

“I just wanted to apologize for calling you a dick-swab. After you fired us.”

“Me too!” Victor chimes in. Dale nods his head in acknowledgement, but says nothing otherwise. 

After a beat of awkward silence, Victor gets right to the point; “Did you see the CCTV, mate?”

Dale scoffs, “Christ, not this again. Fine…. I made up the bloody CCTV.”

Eyes wide in shock, Nico shakes her head, “W- Why?”

Dale pounds a fist on the table top, shocking them both, “Because! Because it was not your investigation. You should have just been doing your job. I was just sick of you piping up with your theories any time there was a sniff of conspiracy in the air. You tiresome think-bucket!” He shouts, face red and sweaty. 

Victor eyes him warningly, “Easy, mate.”

He clenches his fist, “Uh Sorry.... I - I have to go and get the kids.” He tugs on his jacket and heads towards the pub exit, leaving behind a bewildered Nico and Victor.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jonah holds Lucy by the throat against the wall, grunting and breathing heavily from the physical exertion. 

“I’m halving your allowance” He says sternly. 

She gasps for breath as she struggles against him, “I wouldn’t recommend that.”

He lets her go and paces around the living room, “You disobeyed me.”

Lucy throws her hands up and shakes her head, “You lied to me! You said it was impossible, but I got the job done, did I not?”

He sighs, “You have to trust me.” 

She groans before rushing him, landing a few blows to his face before he flips their positions, holding her arms back behind her as he pants. She strains to get out from in front of him, but slackens as he speaks. “Okay. We can fight. But you will get tired and i will get bored and I know how much you don’t like it when I’m bored. If I kill you, they will just send me another one.”

She removes herself from his hold and stands back, “I thought you worried about me.” She holds a hand up to her chest. 

He rolls his eyes. “You’re so dramatic.” 

She rubs at her wrists and takes a seat on the couch as he sits in the chair facing her. 

“Tell me” she says seriously, taking in the wrinkles scattered about his face. 

There was something different. She could feel it. 

He rubs at his temples before speaking, “A woman in London is leading a department just to find you.”

She smiles mischievously. 

Jonah shakes his head, “No, it’s not a good thing. It’s a closed operation and we don’t know what they know, but we’re working on it. We need you to be more subtle at the moment.”

She nods, “I can be subtle.” She gets up and goes to the kitchen, retrieving a bottle of vodka and two glasses before settling back into the couch.

“Good.”

She opens it and pours a small glass for them both. Taking a sip she asks, “What’s her name?”

He eyes her quizzically, “Why?” 

She stares unfaltering and he sighs, “Nico Minoru.”

She repeats the name, “Nico Minoru” - relishing in the way the syllables form on her tongue. Her mind replays images of the petite woman she’d seen in that hospital bathroom, her jet black hair falling in soft waves over her shoulders. Her sharply defined cheekbones, deep brown eyes and smooth pale skin. 

He nods, “We continue as usual. Just be aware.”

She rolls her eyes but responds anyway, “I’m always aware.”

She smiles hollowly as she finishes her glass, and pours another. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Victor and Nico stand outside of the pub, smoke from their cigarettes blowing into the night sky . Dale is long gone, but they’ve stayed behind discussing the case. 

Something about the way Dale explained lying about the CCTV bothers her. Well, everything about the man bothers her really, but that’s neither here nor there. 

She checks her cellphone for the umpteenth time - she hasn’t heard from Chase yet, but she’s sure he’ll be done soon with the nurse information compilation.

Her mind replays images from that night: poor Dom that she’d dragged into this mess, the metallic scent of the blood flowing across the hospital room floor, the nurse’s lifeless eyes, Kasia’s red and sputtering throat, the bathroom -  _ The bathroom! _

“You okay there? Staring into the abyss?” Victor asks as he notices her gaze drifting off towards the night sky. 

A rush of both fear and excitement flood her senses all at once as she remembers the soft, yet stern voice -  _ Wear it down _ .

“No, no… There was a young woman at the hospital, leaving when I got there and she... I - I think I’ve met her.” she replies, eyes wide as a shiver runs down her back. Victor stares at her, cigarette falling from his open mouth in disbelief.

_ So close _

She had been right there all along. 


	4. only way out is down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Chapter title is from Everything But The Girl - "Five Fathoms"
> 
> I'm nearly finished with the next chapter and will (hopefully) post soon. I hope you enjoy and as always, thank you for reading xo

Lucy smiles, teeth straight, impeccably white, her eyes sharp and gleaming. The naked, heavy-set and balding Asian man strapped to the black leather chair shakes violently before falling completely still. She exhales shakily, the rush of her high spreading like wildfire in her blood.

She shuts off the gas and gingerly removes the mask from the man’s face, placing it back on the side table. She removes her gloves, placing them in the trash, perfectly manicured nails rifling through a black leather bag for her change of clothes. She makes quick work of stripping off the nurse’s uniform, pulling on a dark navy coverall suit before exiting the room.

As she heads towards the exit, the blonde receptionist spots her and tries to wave her down, “Nico! Warte eine Minute! Ihre Entschädigung ! ”  **(Nico! Wait a minute! Your Compensation!) **

But she’s too late, she’s already gone, the bustling streets of Berlin noisily greeting her. 

Lucy pulls a black strap-back cap from her pocket, placing it firmly onto her head. Her black heeled lace-up boots clacking quickly, but quietly onto the pavement as she gracefully crosses the street towards an U-Bahn station. 

_ Come and find me. _

_ \------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _

As soon as Nico walks into the office, she can tell something is off. Everyone immediately stares at her before looking away quickly. She wonders if it’s her choice of outfit - she’s attempting to get away with wearing the same black t-shirt for the third day in a row. She’d been a bit too busy for laundry really. Besides, she wore black almost every day. She briefly entertains the idea of doing a pit-smell check before thinking better to try in the bathroom later.

_ Yes, lest they start to think I’ve gone Steve Jobs on them _ , she thinks with a slight frown. 

Janet approaches her, “Ah good, you’re here.” She points Nico to take a seat at her desk, and waits for everyone to settle in before addressing them. 

“There’s been another kill.” 

“You mean Carla de Mann?” Nico asks, remembering the headline she’d seen over the weekend; a designer - murdered in the bathroom while attending a prestigious awards ceremony. 

“No. Zhang Wu. A Chinese colonel visiting Berlin.  Murdered during a very specific fetish thing, where he liked having small surgical operations performed on his body and having his balls clamped.”

Janet looks around as everyone’s faces go through mixed expressions of embarrassment and shock.

“He was a regular there” Janet reveals with a completely straight face.

Nico sputters and tries - terribly - to hold in a laugh. When the others eye her, her face reddens and she composes herself. “Sorry.”

Janet continues, “Suspect: a Caucasian woman in her mid-20s, claimed she was covering for the other surgeon girl.”

“Fetish girl” Chase corrects with a smirk. 

“Thank you” she retorts dryly.

“Any witnesses?” Nico asks.

“Yes, One. A receptionist that signed her in as a temp”

Molly, Chase and Victor turn in their seats to look at Nico. She narrows her eyes at them, not understanding why they’re so keen on watching her closely all of a sudden. 

“Why are you all being so weird?” she asks suspiciously. 

Janet sighs, “Well, she gave a name at the desk.”

“Okay…”

“She said her name was Nico Minoru.” Janet smirks at Nico’s flabbergasted expression. 

“Jesus…” a beat - “Please don’t take me off the team.” Nico pleads, eyes begging gently. 

“I can’t take you off a team that doesn’t exist. Your actions are your own. What do you want to do?” Janet shrugs. 

Nico nods and turns towards Victor. He’s already shaking his head, his auburn hair swaying from side to side with each movement. 

“Victor, come with me. I need your German and I know you’ve got some contacts there. It’s not like she’s still gonna be there.”

He sighs, but acquiesces. “Fine, fine, but  _ I  _ get the window seat on the plane and you have to take  _ Molly  _ next time there’s a trip anywhere.” 

The curly-haired woman in question’s eyes widen at her name and the others watch as she abruptly stands up attempts to smoothly walk backwards out of the office. She fails miserably. Promptly falling onto the floor with a loud thud. 

“I’m okay!” she shouts, holding a thumbs up visible above the desks and monitors. 

Nico turns back to Victor and rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I’ll be sure to take  _ Molly  _ for the next one.”

\------------------------------------------------------------

“This whole thing is such a pain in the ass.” Nico says as she exhales a plume of smoke. They’re sat outside of a restaurant in Berlin, waiting for Victor’s contact to meet them.

“I know you hate your new job, don't you?” Victor asks wryly. 

Nico shoves him gently as he laughs. 

Victor takes a drag of his cigarette, “Why do you think she used your name?”

Nico shakes her head as she expels another puff of white smoke from her lips, “I don’t know.”

An older man, wearing a black quilted jacket, gray pants and trainers approaches. He looks around surreptitiously before he reaches them. 

“Weber, Hi.” Victor greets him with a smile and a hug and when they separate, he shakes Nico’s hand. 

They leave the restaurant and begin walking towards the crime scene. Nico rolls her suitcase behind her, not trusting the hotel staff to hold onto it until check-in time. 

“What can you tell us about the nurse?” Nico asks as they approach the supposed medical center. The short building is inconspicuous enough. Gray, uniform and unremarkable in this part of Ost Berlin. 

“Sadly, very little. She just disappeared. Clientele also use fake names and cash, so we can’t trace any other potential witnesses. As for the autopsy, Jin, the Chinese attaché ordered a second opinion. Seems the Chinese government wasn’t happy with the carbon monoxide poisoning.” Weber responds.

Victor’s face is pensive as he speaks, “It sounds like the Chinese are trying to bury this case.” 

He and Weber converse in German for a few minutes as Nico looks around the building’s entrance. She walks back to them and interrupts. 

“Hey, watch this. I’ll be right back.” She hands Victor her suitcase and walks off to the side of the building, quickly tapping on Chase’s contact number. 

“Hello?”

“Chase, can you find out where this person is through their email? I’d do it myself, but I’m kind of limited here.”

He laughs on the other end, “Sure. Send it over to me now and I’ll get it done.”

She hangs up and walks back over to the building to find Weber and Victor exchanging goodbyes. 

“Thank you. It was nice to meet you.” She offers with another handshake. As Weber departs, Chase calls her back. 

“I got it. I’m sending his exact location now.”

“Thanks Chase. Bye.” Nico hangs up again and starts walking around Victor in a panic. Her suitcase has vanished, likely stolen by a passerby as Victor and Weber talked about nonsense.

“What the hell Vic? I thought I told you watch my bag?!”

Victor scratches at the back of his chin length auburn hair and smiles sheepishly, “Oops, uh yeah.”

Nico rolls her eyes and sighs.

\---------------------------------------------------------

“I thought I could smell something.” Lucy says looking up from a magazine while lying in her hotel room bed. She’d been enjoying a rather leisurely day, mostly occupied with shopping, and of course, seeing to it that Nico Minoru had arrived in Berlin. Hoping that she’d be excited at the chance to see her work, excited that she’d used  _ her name,  _ that this was for  _ her.  _ Job be damned. 

“Sorry, are you having a nice little holiday here? I booked you in for  _ one _ night.” Jonah responds angrily, waving a finger at her from the center of the room. 

“So? I like Berlin.” Lucy says shrugging as she places the magazine on the bedside table. She turns to fully face him, but doesn’t rise from the bed and pretends to inspect her nails. They’re perfect though, always are. Cut short, painted a perfect nude shade. Never one to seek too much attention. 

He sighs, “I have a job for you. Off the record. The woman, Nico Minara..” he trails off, squinting towards the ceiling. That doesn’t sound right, but he can’t really be bothered to remember the details now. 

“Minoru” Lucy corrects. Her heart starts to race and she relishes in this feeling. It’s delightful chaos. 

“Yes, Minoru. She’s here. She’s investigating your work,” he continues. He eyes her, gauging her reaction. 

“Did you see where I did it? Cute, no?” She asks with a coy smile. Of course, she’d already known that Nico Minoru was  _ here _ . She’d seen her back in East Berlin, checking out the scene of her masterpiece.

“Yes, very cute. I want you to watch her. I need to know who she meets. This is me asking you, not  _ them _ . Okay? Just watch her.” He says.

She nods, appearing to uninterestedly accept his request. She’s absolutely glowing internally at the chance to get to do this officially, but she could never tell Jonah that. She knows she’s the best they have, but Jonah’s warning of being replaced still lurks in the corners of her mind. 

“Promise you won’t be naughty.” He says sternly.

She laughs, “I promise I won’t be naughty.” There’s a definite glint in her eye, but Jonah can’t bring himself to care. He doesn’t believe in God, hasn’t for a long time, but he prays that she’ll behave.  _ For once.  _

Jonah walks towards the door, pulling his long black coat closed around his large frame and removing his signature cap from his pocket. “Find out what they’re doing. Find out who they’re meeting. Don’t do anything stupid,” he instructs before closing the door behind him.

Lucy settles back onto the bed, contemplating his words for a moment before she slowly unzips her dark blue skinny jeans. She bites her bottom lip in debate, but decides quickly.

_ Fuck it _ . 

As she gently inches her right hand towards her underwear, she closes her eyes, and imagines dark brown eyes boring into her own.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Victor knocks three times on Nico’s hotel room door, shifting his weight from leg to leg because he’s a little nervous. 

She opens the door and he hands her a large blue shopping bag.

“Are these for me?” Nico asks, stepping aside to let him into the room.

“Yeah. I’m really sorry about your suitcase. I kind of guessed your size.” He says with a shrug. He takes a seat on the bed, watching her reaction. 

She laughs, “It’s okay. I hate all my clothes anyway. But the green scarf Alex gave me for Christmas was in there, so he might be a bit peeved when we get back.”

“So.. I did you a favor then?” Victor says with a smile. She removes her shirt from the day before, a now food stained white short-sleeved blouse and takes one of the basic black crew necks from the bag Victor had given her. He’d ultimately guessed correctly and Nico is both impressed and a little creeped out. 

“I figured anything black would be good.”

She chuckles lightly as she looks herself over in the mirror. She’s glad she’d at least worn her favorite black slacks and her go-to black Doc Marten brogues to the airport. She’d had them since she graduated from college and really wouldn’t want to have to break in a new pair. That would  _ really  _ be a huge pain in the ass. 

“Come on.” she responds, grabbing her phone and wallet before leaving the room with Victor following behind. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------

They approach the attaché Weber mentioned at a Cafe, waiting as he puts the newspaper that’d been hiding half of his face down. 

“Jin?” Victor asks, taking in the short, thin, and well-toned Asian man before him. 

The man folds the newspaper neatly, pressing it into the table. He looks them up and down before sighing dramatically. “Sorry friends. I don’t know anything about Colonel Zhang.”

Nico is already irritated by this man, but figures if he knows who she is, maybe he’ll be a little more willing to help.

“My name is Nico Minoru” she states.

He quirks a well-manicured eyebrow at her, “Strange coincidence about your name.”

“Yeah” 

“A bit creepy,” Victor adds. 

Jin sizes them up again, then motions for them to take a seat opposite him. 

He’s unfazed as they begin to ask him questions. 

“Weber mentioned a second autopsy? Why would you need one?”

“Ah, yes, that’s just come through. You can see it after you’ve been vetted,” he responds. 

“When will that be?”

Jin places a hand under his chin, pretending to deeply contemplate her question, “The usual. Six months or so.”

Nico stares at him incredulously. 

_ Bullshit _

“Listen, your colleague was targeted. It’s in your best interests to cooperate and - “

He interrupts her with a laugh, “I’m joking! I’ll get it for you.” He smirks at her. 

“What do you know about this guy?” Victor asks.

“Internally, he was known as Fat Panda. Which is a little racist. Fattist, come to that. But I hear that he started it so we went along. He was based in China, but over here in Berlin a lot. Popular, good leader, nice man. His death has shocked a lot of people. ” Jin responds.

“Who do you think murdered him?” Nico asks.

“He wasn’t. The new autopsy says that he died of a heart attack.” Jin shrugs taking a sip of tea. 

“What? The nurse who was supposed to be on duty was drugged. This was a blatant assassination!” 

“And as the Chinese attaché, I’m saying it was a heart attack. This story cannot exist. I’m afraid we have run out of time” he concludes sternly. He grabs his briefcase from the chair next to him, preparing to leave, when Victor interrupts.

“Wait! Please!” 

He stops and turns back towards them. “Maybe Miss Minoru would like to join me for dinner tonight? Perhaps we could continue the conversation then, yes? I might have something you could extract from me,” Jin says with a slick smile. 

Nico and Victor turn towards one another, a pleading look on his face. Nico sighs, “Yes, of course.”

“Great. I’ll send the details to you later.” Jin waves as he walks away and exits the Cafe. 

  
  


“He wants to have sex with you.” Victor says, breaking the awkward silence that had formed between them. 

“Don’t.”

“He wants to fondle you” Victor continues with a chuckle.

Nico narrows her eyes, willing daggers to emerge from them and straight into Victor’s throat.

_ If only.  _

He laughs at her expression before changing the subject, “I’m going to report your bag.” 

He takes out his wallet and hands her several large Euro bills. “Get yourself something nice to wear for tonight. I’m taking you out after dinner with Jin.” 

“Great... no fetish clubs though” she responds frowning slightly. 

\----------------------------------------

Lucy enters the store, her eyes following her target. She’s in disguise of course, black cap firmly placed over her hidden blonde waves. She’d chosen a very lowkey outfit for her tastes; tight black pants and a white shirt under an average gray coat, knowing she needs to look as incognito as possible to avoid anyone’s attention.

A store clerk approaches her and offers her help, but she ignores her until she disappears with a scoff. She hears her mutter the German word for “bitch” under her breath and she smiles. 

She waits in between the clothing racks near the dressing room area, watching closely as Nico enters a dressing room, a variety of dresses draped across her arms. 

_ She looks beautiful already _ , Lucy thinks, but she greedily can’t wait to catch a glimpse of her in an extravagant gown. 

Lucy feels her heart start to race again, excited at the prospect of being so close and Nico being completely unaware of her presence, that she’s been and is  _ still  _ watching her so intently. 

Nico emerges from the dressing room a moment later, looking at herself in the array of mirrors just outside of her dressing room. Her body is adorned by a thin strapped dark blue gown with a deep plunging neckline that neatly covers her breasts, while exposing so much of her smooth skin. She pulls her hair down and uses her fingers to brush it to one side, examining her figure. Her hair is long enough to braid and she thinks she’ll do exactly that for dinner tonight.

Lucy’s almost breathless as she watches. She can see her own reflection from the clothing rack as Nico turns around and around, still seemingly deciding on the dress. 

They catch eyes, just once, and Nico’s heart stops. She’d felt eyes watching her, following her as she moved. She slowly turns around, wanting to face her apparent admirer, but they’re already gone. Vanished, as if they’d never been there in the first place. She furrows her brow, puzzled and wondering if she’s starting to lose her mind, really. She shakes it off quickly, turning back towards her own reflection. 

Lucy’s heart is still racing, even after her quick get-away. She was playing a dangerous game, she knew, and this was the direct opposite of what Jonah had told her, but well, she couldn’t resist. And it’d been worth it she decides, Nico’s brief intense gaze seared into her memory. 

Back in the shop, Nico decides that this  _ is _ the dress she will wear tonight. 

\-------------------------

“You can’t wear a bra with that dress This is an important meeting.” Victor says, watching Niko apply eyeliner in the hotel room. 

“Oh? And important meetings require women to go braless?” she replies, perfecting the edges of her winged eyes. 

“No, dresses like that require women to go braless.” He retorts. 

She snorts derisively before opening a tube of blood red lipstick. 

“How’s Alex?”

“Hmm. I think he’s jealous. He knows I’m on a work trip with you.” She reaches behind her, unclasping her bra and shimmying it over her head, tossing it onto the bed behind Victor.

He ducks to avoid it hitting him square in the face.

“What does he think I'm doing here? Skulking to your hotel room and convincing you to take off your bra?... Have you ever fancied me?” Victor asks. 

“Uh - No. You me?”

“Hmm. No.”

“Well, that's a relief.” Victor smiles. 

“You ever been interested in women?” he adds after a beat.

Nico’s eyes widen and she chokes on air, “Uh, uhm. No?” 

Victor watches her, a look she can’t really decipher in his eyes. “Not even the ones with delicate features, sort of catlike eyes and a penchant for assassinating people?”

Nico blushes, “That is horribly unprofessional!” she chastises.

“What about her tits?” he asks with a wink. She gasps and sputters trying to respond.

Victor laughs at her, “I’m just joking!”

Nico reddens further, “Let’s go, I’m ready” she says standing up and stepping into her matching dark navy pumps.

Victor lets out a wolf whistle at her as she spins to show off her full outfit.

“I’ll be at a bar near the restaurant. I’ll call you at 9:00 to give you an out, but you reach me if you need anything.” He says with a serious look as he gets up from the bed.

  
  


“Yeah, okay. I will.” She grabs her purse and opens the door to let Victor out of the room first, making sure it closes firmly behind her.

“I can’t believe I’m letting you out unsupervised!” He bellows from the hallway. 

She rolls her eyes. “Just walk me to the train station will you?”

“Of course, M’lady!” he replies, tipping an invisible hat towards her. 

\------------------------------------------------------------

She arrives at the restaurant, finding Jin easily with the hostess’s help. It’s ridiculously upscale and not the kind of place she’d want to dine at regularly, regardless of finances. She’d had more than enough stiff, upper-class dinners with her parents and while she enjoys many finer things in life, being subjected to this kind of scrutiny and pomp wasn’t worth a damn. 

“Wow, wow wow!” he says with a lecherous smile as she reaches the table.

“Hi.” She responds cautiously.

“You look crazy,” he says looking her over more intently as she sits down across from him.

“Listen Jin, I am going to be very up front here. I don’t want - “

He interrupts her, “I have a lovely Chablis. Please try some.”

She sighs, but takes a sip anyway. “Do you actually have any more information for me? I’m not here to entertain you, I have a lot of work to do, I’m not wearing a bra and frankly, I just want to go home.”

“Are you flirting with me?” he asks with a wink.

Tired of playing his game, Nico responds honestly, “Ugh, no.”

Her phone vibrates loudly from her purse.

“Oh thank God. I have to take this.” She begins to excuse herself, but Jin grabs onto her arm boldly. 

“Okay. Okay. Don’t. I’m sorry” he offers an apologetic smile. 

She ignores the call and lets it go to voicemail, sitting back in her chair to hear Jin out. 

“I was just playing, okay? You guessed right, my government fiddled with the facts, because of the sex. But I guarantee, we didn’t do it. And unless I want to piss off my superiors further, I can’t tell you anything more, on the record. Off the record, and this, you can never repeat okay?” He leans in conspiratorially. 

\-------

Victor sighs as Nico’s phone goes to voicemail. He’s weaving in and out of the crowds at the U-Bahn station, following as Lucy, clad in a lavish designer suit and boots, rushes from train car to train car. 

“I might be going crazy, but I think a girl was trailing you when I dropped you off at the U-Bahn. I’m following her now. Call Weber, please. We’re heading towards Cassiopeia. Call me. I don’t want to lose eyes on her.” He ends the call message and pockets his phone as he heads into the train car he’d spotted her stop at. 

\---------------

Jin continues, “ Last week, Fat Panda hacked into the account of an agent of the Chinese Intelligence. An organization has been paying him millions. We don't know what for, but a week later, both Fat Panda and the agent were dead.” 

Nico furrows her brows, taking in his words when her phone vibrates again. 

She listens to Victor’s first and second message, learning that he’s been trailing someone and is now at a nightclub called Funkeln. 

Jin rolls his eyes, “Do you want dessert? I have a craving for chocolate mousse. Do you like chocolate mousse?” he attempts to interrupt.

She needs to cut this short and now. 

“Jin. I can’t. I have to go. Thank you, but I really just have to leave right now.” She grabs her purse and tucks in her chair before turning to walk away towards the exit.

He dramatically holds a hand to his chest, “Hey! You break my heart. I’ll be sending something for you, at the hotel later” he says with a waggle of his eyebrows. 

She smiles sarcastically at him, rushing off into the night. This was their chance.

\-------------------------------------

Victor is thrust into a crowd of sweaty, gyrating bodies and under normal circumstances, well this would be exactly his cup of tea, but this circumstance wasn’t  _ normal _ and the freakishly taunting smile he sees on  _ her _ face, makes him sick. He’d been right to follow her, but he isn’t fully sure what to do now. He whips around suddenly, noticing that the blonde’s smiling face has disappeared entirely from his view. 

_ She was just here...wasn’t she? _

He feels a rush of panic flood his body. He’d been so close and he lost her, just as she’d intended by coming into this club no doubt. He reaches blindly into his pocket for his phone, eyes still scanning the room ahead of him.

The music shifts, the rhythmic beat amping up for the drop and the bodies around him seem to slow. A warm hand reaches from behind him, clamping over his mouth firmly as the strobing lights dim further. 

“You should have let me go. You should have stayed with  _ her _ .” 

The bass drops and the crowd erupts into chaotic motion again.

He feels the sharp pain of the blade cutting into his back before he registers her words. Tears streaming down his face and muffled cries falling on deaf ears. The music fades entirely from his mind and all he can hear is the wet squelch of the blade striking his flesh again and again. He stumbles, held up only by drug addled dancers as Lucy retreats from the scene as quickly as she’d appeared. He can feel the world around him spinning out of focus. He needed to tell her, to warn her.

_ Nico... _

_ \--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _

She pulls up the club’s address and orders an uber, demanding that the driver get there as fast as possible. 

The loud and rhythmic bass can be heard from around the corner as Nico is dropped off. She skips the line formed at the front, pulling out the unofficial badge Janet had given her prior to departure. “Let me in, now.” She checks her phone, Victor still hasn’t called back and she can’t shake the feeling forming tightly in the pit of her stomach. 

The bouncer lets her through without any question and she rushes onto the dancefloor. She desperately calls Victor’s phone but to no avail. It takes her a minute of eyeing the outermost areas of the large open room before she catches sight of a young woman clearly distraught and pointing towards a slumped figure on the ground in a far corner. Those dancing around her approaching cautiously. 

Nico’s heart stops.

She pushes through the crowd of people as best she can, removing her heels halfway there to help ease her way. 

When she finally reaches her destination, the young woman is openly sobbing as other club go-ers shout in German for help. She shakily crouches down to find Victor’s body completely covered in blood.


	5. Are you a Devil or an Angel?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Belated Valentine's Day! [Fun Fact - it's also my birthday] 
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoy and feedback is always welcome.
> 
> Sorry if there are any typos/actual Killing Eve names. I've been sleep deprived for days.

“Please, be seated.” Janet says as Nico, Molly and Chase file into the room. 

“What happened to Victor is a travesty…” she trails off and Nico, Molly and Chase wait on bated breath. They hadn’t been updated about his condition ever since he was airlifted from the nightclub in critical condition by private helicopter. Occasionally, Nico could call in favors to her semi-retired parents and this had been one of them, but once he’d reached the designated hospital, MI6 had placed extreme restrictions on any information about him.

“- but I’m happy to report to you all that he is in stable condition.”

Nico releases the breath she’d been holding, wiping away a stray tear on her cheek while Molly openly and rather disturbingly, sobs. Chase awkwardly offers her a pat on the back as Janet rolls her eyes. 

“In the meantime, we carry on with the investigation. As I receive further updates on Victor, I’ll keep you lot in the loop,” Janet says before heading out of the office to make private phone calls. 

Chase looks over Molly’s head, now buried into his shoulder and inevitably getting snot all over his polo and addresses Nico, “So what do you want to do now?”

Nico’s eyes hold a fire in them that Chase has never seen before as she responds: “I want to kill her. with my bare hands.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------

As soon as he opens the door, Jonah is met with an explosion of glitter and multi-colored confetti. 

“Happy Birthday!” Lucy shouts before blowing a party blower loudly into his ear. She’s comically dressed in a way oversized gray coat and fake salt and pepper beard held up by a black cap. It’s not her best disguise, but it’s clearly her most Jonah one. 

He groans, roughly shaking confetti out of his beard and covers his ears as he pushes past her into her apartment.

“Lucy, what are you doing?” he asks as he turns to face her from the living room.

“It’s your birthday! I thought we would celebrate.” 

He sighs and shakes his head, “It is not my birthday.”

“So tell me when it is!” she says with a laugh.

He shakes his head again and shoots her a stern look, “We need to talk.”

She pouts slightly, but nods her head, “Okay. Fine.” She takes a seat on her couch, turning to give him her full attention.

Jonah eyes her suspiciously as he takes a seat opposite her on a chair.

“You are being very nice.”

“I’ve been excited to see you.”

“Really? Or is it because you know I’m very angry?”

She blows a raspberry and lies back on the couch, absently picking at the loose threads on a cushion.

“Do you think I don’t know everything? He was off limits, Lucy.”

“He was following me and I thought it’d be best if I followed protocol… How was I supposed to know if you didn't tell me?”

Jonah shakes his head, “Fine, but now I don’t think I can trust you. If you can’t play alone, then you have to play with your little brothers and sisters.”

He takes out a postcard from his coat pocket, tossing it onto the table between them. 

“Your next job. This will tell you where to meet them. You won’t work alone again.”

She rolls her eyes, watching as he stands up and begins to head towards the door.

“Wait” she calls out after him before reaching behind the couch for a neatly wrapped gift. She gets up and hands it to him. He eyes it, deciding whether to open it immediately or not. 

“Open it. Please” she asks politely, blue eyes shining brightly through batted eyelashes. 

Jonah quirks an eyebrow, but acquiesces to her demand, staring down with a hardened expression once he pulls back the packaging to reveal a child’s stuffed animal. He takes an uneasy breath as he meets Lucy’s gaze.

“For your daughter” she says cooly, then with a sharp smile, “Did you think _ I _ don’t know anything?”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lucy arrives at St. Pancras station late at night. When she reaches the outer streets, she scans for her pick-up car, finding a non-descript gray van, marked only as “Birdwatching Tours U.K 2000.” She frowns.This was not her usual and  _ favored _ style, but a girl’s gotta eat right?

A brunette, curly-headed young man greets her as he opens the passenger door for her, “Welcome to England.”

She shoots him a fake smile. “I’m so excited to see the Siberian chiffchaff.”

“Unlikely. They haven’t been seen since 2009.” he responds as he begins moving duffel bags from the front to the back of the van. He unpacks a gun from one and pockets it. 

She points excitedly, “Do I get one of those?”

He shakes his head,“You’re a little late.”

“I had to make a delivery. When’s the kill?” she asks blandly. He doesn’t react. 

“Tomorrow” he responds curtly, his attention focused as he catalogues the weapons and materials in the duffle bags.

  
“Where are we going to sleep tonight?” 

He points towards the back of the van, not taking his eyes off of his work.

“There’s a cushion. We take turns.”

She rolls her eyes as the noise from the train station filters in from outside.

This was going to be a  _ great  _ assignment. 

\-------------------------------

Lucy’s rudely awakened by the van coming to a stop. They’re in what looks like a forested area, away from the city centre.

The man looks at her from the rear-view mirror, making eye contact, “I’m gonna do a thing behind a bush.” He exits swiftly, the sound of the door shutting rattling her still adjusting mind. 

“Your hair’s grown.” a voice says from behind her.

She whips around quickly to find her former friend and lover, Julie. It feels like an entire lifetime has passed since she’s seen the brunette. She looks the same; long dark brown locks framing her face, tired blue eyes and a ghastly, brown scar stretching around the side of her pale neck. 

After a quiet moment, they immediately begin to exchange blows. The van rocking with their movements as Lucy lunges for Julie’s throat. 

The man rushes into the van, pushing a strong arm between the two effectively separating them. Julie spits out onto Lucy’s face. The wet glob, sliding slowly down her face. Lucy knows that she deserves it though. 

“Hey! Hey! No fighting in the car! She’s a friend!” he asserts to Lucy. 

Lucy backs off as he assesses Julie’s form. He turns back to her suspiciously, “Are you?”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You want some stew? Wine?” Alex offers from the doorway of the study.

Nico doesn’t bother to face him, nose buried in piles of paperwork at her desk. The lights are dim and she’s in her favorite jumper, lost in thought as slowdive plays from the speakers beside her. 

“No, thanks.”

When she still feels his eyes on her back, she turns to him, “What?”

He sighs and removes his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. 

“You’re not okay Nico. What happened with Victor in Berlin?” he asks. 

She sighs, knowing that she can’t jeopardize his life with any of the information from the case. He, like Victor’s family, could never know the truth.

“Jesus Christ. I…Just know that everything’s okay. He’s gonna pull through and that’s all that matters.” she responds, turning back to her work with a huff.

Alex nods, knowing he can’t push her further. She’d have to come to him in her own time, but he hopes that by then it won’t be too late. He turns back towards the door, readying himself to leave.

“Oh, your suitcase came back from Berlin, by the way. I saw it on the doorstep on my way in. I’ll leave stew out for you, but I’m going home.”

She nods, not looking back as he leaves, “Thanks.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The young man, Diego, as she’d learned, stares between her and Julie. 

“So? What’s the history hmm?” When neither woman responds he sighs, “Well keep it out of my car. Only happy things in the car, okay? Baby, pass me a thing.” He says pointing. She smoothly passes him a gun from the bag.

Lucy rolls her eyes at them, “Who is the target?”

“We don’t know yet.” Diego tells her.

“You don’t know who our target is?” she asks exasperatedly. 

“We’ll be told on arrival.”

Julie continues, “We just know we’re here to kill a member of the British Intelligence Services.”

Lucy nods before turning to look out the window as Diego starts the van again. She looks entirely disinterested, but inside, her mind floods with images of Nico in Berlin. And though she knows that she has to do her job, no matter what or whom, she allows a small sliver of hope that the mark _ isn’t _ Nico, to enter her mind. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Nico finally leaves the study, she heads straight for the doorway to her house, peering around and down the quiet street before lifting her plain black suitcase and rolling it into the house. Though she’d already accepted that she’d lost all of her trip belongings, she’s at least a little glad to be able to get the stupid green scarf Alex had given her back. He’d already thrown a fit when she’d explained that her suitcase had been stolen. 

She wheels it up the stairs and into her massive lofted bedroom, placing it on the couch near the hallway leading to the bathroom so that she can start to unpack. When she opens it, she lets out a sharp gasp.

All of her clothing has been removed and replaced with luxury designer brands, all in her exact size. 

A perfume called “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by Yves Saint Laurent sits in the middle with a small handwritten note attached by dark red ribbon. She delicately turns it over, reading the words over and over in her mind:  _ “Sorry baby x.” _

Her mind races,  _ she _ knows where she lives. _ She _ was the one that’d stolen her suitcase.  _ She _ ’d been following them the entire time in Berlin. Had  _ she  _ been following them here, too?

She calls Chase immediately. 

“Don’t touch anything further. You don’t want to risk any further contamination.” he instructs, 

She nods even though he can’t see her. 

“It’s not good that she knows where you live, Nico.”

She scoffs, “Yeah, well don’t write your address on your suitcase that gets stolen by a psychopath.”

“You need to get the whole thing fast-tracked with forensics. Get any DNA checked and cross-referenced with the other crime scenes,” he continues.

She sighs, “Yeah. I need you to check stores that stock these clothes in Berlin. They have German tags, so they’re probably from there. See if we can get security footage from those stores.”

“Okay. So we’re going to keep going then?”

“Yes, we’re going to keep going.” she responds. 

“Okay, you’ve got it boss.” he responds.

“Oh and look up this perfume, LSD -” 

He interrupts her, “I know it - don’t ask - But it’s Lucy, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

“Lucy” she repeats. “That’s what we’ll call her from now on”

\----------------------------------------------------

Back at the office the next day, Nico is still rattled from her suitcase’s contents. Lucy had been at her house, and had potentially been there before. She knew not only who she was, but where she lived and seemed to have some sort of...connection.. She couldn’t understand it. What did she want from Nico?

Molly approaches her desk and startles her a bit.

“Hey so, I’ve got something a little weird.” she starts as she takes a seat beside her.

“What is it, Mols?” Nico asks, taking a sip of coffee.

“Jin Yeong, the Chinese agent. The documents he gave you in Berlin included statements form accounts in the Cayman Islands. Jin thinks that they, whoever they are, used these accounts to pay off insiders betraying his department,” Molly continues. 

“Okay.” Nico nods. 

“So I’m poking around on these transactions and I notice this account number. It’s British. Receiving three payments a year for the exact same amount. It all lands here, St. Henry’s. A prep school in Sussex. School fees.” she finishes.

Nico takes a moment, lost in thought, before her mind is suddenly the clearest it’s ever been it seems

. 

“I went to this party. About a year ago, before you started at MI5. Everyone got drunk, but Dale, he got really really just properly pissed.”

Molly interrupts, “Well that makes sense, isn’t that around when his wife died?”

“Yeah, yeah, well then she was still just ill. I had to put him in a cab at like 8:00. So while we’re waiting for the cab, he gets emotional, telling me the pressure he was under to send his kids to private school. He said there was no feasible way he could find the money.”

“Let me guess, Dale’s kids go to St. Henry’s?”

“Yep, both of them.” Nico says with a smile.

“It really is disappointing when the mole is the one who looks the most like a rodent,” Molly says with a frown. 

“We’ve got to find the bastard and bring him in. Get Kenny on it too,” Nico instructs. 

Molly nods as Nico continues, “In the grand scheme of things, Dale is middle management. There’s a good chance he’ll lead us to someone far more important. We need to keep this in-house.”

  
  


\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Diego looks back at Lucy and Julie, “Everyone had a pee? There won’t be time to later.”

Lucy offers a sardonic smile, “I can hold it.”

Diego shrugs, “Okay, but you’ll regret it. I’ll be a minute.” 

He exits the van, walking off towards a bush to cover himself. 

Julie stares intently at Lucy, eyes burning into her. 

Lucy takes a deep breath, “Don’t be freaky.”

Julie’s eyes roam her figure, sizing her up, “I thought I’d never see you again.”

Lucy rolls her eyes, “You hoped.”

Julie sighs, “I won’t fight you.”

Lucy turns to her, a devilish smirk on her face. 

“Why? You scared?” she asks before punching Julie directly in the nose, blood spurting out as the brunette recoils in pain. 

Julie breathes heavily from her mouth, “No. I just don’t want you to get hurt.” she says, spitting out a mouthful of blood onto the van’s carpeted floor. 

Lucy stares at her curiously with a frown, “Okay?”

Diego rushes in, roughly opening the passenger door, “Oh my god. What the hell is going on guys?”

Lucy shrugs, “She had a wasp on her nose.”

He rolls his eyes, furious, “Julie?”

She waves him off, “It’s fine. Let’s just go.”

He looks between them, neither making a move from their respective seats. 

“They told me one of you didn’t matter. Don’t make me guess” he warns sternly before firmly shutting the door and hopping into the driver’s seat. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nico enters the office back from lunch and ready for blood. She beelines for Chase’s desk, excitedly slamming her hands onto the surface. Startled by her antics, he chokes on his mouthful of coffee, spilling a few droplets onto his dark blue polo. 

“Jesus Christ, Nico.”

“So, where’s our rat?” she grins, entirely unapologetic. 

Chase rolls his eyes and places the coffee mug slowly back onto the desk. 

“How many cups have _ you _ had?” he asks her, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. He takes in her perfectly parted and done up hair, slightly red-stained eyes and twitchy smile. 

_ Five - but really who’s counting? _

She dramatically pretends to think, placing her thumb and index finger under her chin, “Hmm.. let’s see….about… none of your business! Now, the rat?”

Chase sighs and mutters under his breath, “Definitely making pots of decaf only from now on…”

“He’s in Buckinghamshire” he answers her previous question. 

“What’s there?”

“I don’t know. Just a house, I think. I’m working on it. In the meantime, we’ve got all of his phone records and contacts to start.”

She nods, “Okay, what’s the town he’s in?”

“It’s a village. About as English a village as you’ll find. It’s called Bletcham,” he responds as he reads over the information he’d collected on the screen. 

She nods again, and Chase regrettably watches the moment a terrible idea comes into her mind.

“We should go.”

He frowns, “What? Are you trained for that?”

She shrugs, “It’s just a surveillance job in the Home Counties, Chase. We just need to be in the area.”

“Okay…”

She smiles at him, “We’re going to Bletcham.” 

He smiles back uneasily, “Right.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Diego parks the van off the side of a quiet neighborhood road. They’re just outside of a clean-looking cul-de-sac in what could only be described as a quaint english town. It reminds Lucy of her parents - it’s a place they would’ve vacationed to long ago, finding anonymity in such a small, mundane part of the world. She hated it. 

“Mmm. Okay, darlings. We’ve got a name. Dale Yorkes” he says excitedly. 

  
  


Lucy snaps to attention, her mind having trailed off to long-forgotten sunny beaches, red hair wisping in the ocean breeze, and piercing blue eyes, much like her own, staring in horror. 

“Hmm?”

“MI5” he responds.

“How are we gonna do this?” she responds as they exit the car to access the duffel bags hidden in the trunk. 

Diego grabs a Beretta from the bag, placing it in his back pocket, “Bang, in the head.”

“Hm.” she responds, already bored watching him. This was stupid.

He sees her disinterested look and frowns, “Or whatever.”

Once they’re all ready, he closes the trunk and they start walking towards one of the cottage-like homes.

“You two go to the front, and I’ll cover the back.” He instructs. He blows a kiss to Julie, “I love you, baby.”

She smiles awkwardly at him as he retreats towards the back of the house. 

Lucy and Julie continue up to the sidewalk and the walkway. 

“He’s nice” Lucy tells her with an unreadable expression.

“I’m glad you got out” she continues.

“You took my place” Julie says evenly. 

“We’re both here now” Lucy says with finality as they ring the doorbell.

An older woman opens the door with a smile, “Hello.”

Lucy flashes her brilliant whites, blue eyes dazzling as she attempts to charm the woman. “Good afternoon. Sorry to ambush you like this. Is Dale in?” she asks, a perfectly posh British accent on her lips. 

The woman shakes her head, “No, he’s gone out, I’m afraid.” 

Lucy’s smile drops, “Oh.”

“I’m his mother” the woman responds. She eyes them suspiciously, “And you, who are you?”

Lucy smiles once more, “My name’s Natalie and this is Fanny” she points towards Julie who smiles shyly. 

“We work with Dale. A few of us are in the area. He gave us this address. I’m sorry. I thought this was his house. We just wanted to drop in” she continues. 

“And say hi” Julie adds in her own horrible attempt at a British accent. 

Lucy feels her blood boil at the _ incompetence.  _

The woman regards them once more, before opening the door in a welcoming gesture. “Mmm, of course. I have some fruitcake in the freezer.” she waves them in. 

Lucy offers another hollow smile, “Oh, lovely.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nico and Kenny sit in a car, just outside of Dale’s neighborhood in Bletcham, a small laptop tracking his cell phone and calls. 

“Did she say anything about me?” Nico asks.

Chase looks up from the screen, puzzled, “Who?”

“Janet”

“Oh my god. You have such a crush.” 

“And you don’t?” Nico retorts with a quirked eyebrow.

“She’s a legend” Molly adds from the backseat, a dreamy look in her eyes.

“In the '80s, she cultivated one of the most powerful Russian assets in British intelligence history.

She exposed an ex-KGB officer planning to sell weapons-grade plutonium on the international black market” Nico continues.

Chase shakes his head, “Can we focus on the task at hand please?”

Nico sighs dramatically, “Fine, fine yeah. But you can tell me if she did, right?”

Chase rolls his eyes for the umpteenth time that day and perks up as a call signal pings on the laptop.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Dale loves it” the woman smiles as she hands the girls a piece of fruitcake. 

“Any idea when he’ll be back?” Lucy asks. 

The woman stands and heads over to the kitchen to pick up a landline receiver, “I’ll just give him a call” she smiles from the doorway politely. 

Lucy rolls her eyes when she turns her back. Julie sits awkwardly at her side. She wasn’t good at this, at least not as good as Lucy was. How could Jonah ever consider them to be on her level? Why had she been forced to work with them of all people? 

She peers out of the window curtains, making note of the SUV parked in the driveway as she eavesdrops.

“Darling, you have lovely visitors here. A Natalie and a Fanny. From the office. Yes. What? Oh, dear. Well that’s a shame. Shall I tell them to come back another time? All right. I’ll see you when I see you. Love you! Bye.” the woman hangs up the phone and heads back into the living room. 

Lucy and Julie’s eyes immediately find her approaching figure. 

“He’s been called back to London, I’m afraid. Something unexpected has come up. But he sends his best wishes and apologies” she says with a frown. 

Lucy tits her head at her, a sickening smile on her face. “He must have been in a hurry...to forget his car.” 

“Yes.” the woman responds easily before heading back into the kitchen with the used plates.

Julie turns to her, the worry in her eyes betraying her calm facade.

“What does that mean?” 

“It means we wait. You go watch the back.” she instructs before heading into the kitchen.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Chase, what’s going on?” Nico asks, watching as he types away on the laptop. 

“We’ve had some activity. But it’s strange. Someone just made a call to Dale’s mobile from a landline. I’ve located him, but the mobile’s in the same house as the landline that called him. Either the equipment is dodgy, which it really isn’t, or it’s just weird.” Chase scratches his brow, perplexed.

Nico grabs the laptop, watching the signal. “Hey! Hey! There! He’s moving out of Bletcham.” She passes the laptop back to Chase. 

“Shit. We just got here!” Molly exclaims from the back.

“He’s fucking bombing it. Why is he running? Does he know that we’re here?”

They follow the signal as Dale drives, Nico directing Chase until they finally stop in a large forested area outside of town.

“Okay, I’m calling him.” 

She gets out of the car and dials Dale’s number.

“Nico? Oh god. Oh!”

Dale is panting heavily into the phone and she can barely make out what he’s saying.

“Dale, listen. It’s okay. We just want to talk to you. You don’t ned to run from us.”

Dale takes several uneven breaths, “They’re chasing me. Help me!”

Nico’s brow furrows, she has no fucking idea what he’s talking about. 

“What? Who is?”

“I should just kill myself” he begins to babble to himself incoherently.

“What? No. Dale, just breathe okay? Calm down and listen to me. Shhh.”

_ What the hell is going on? _

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

‘Woohoo! Go Pumpkin! Go!” Diego shouts from the open van window as Julie aims a telescopic rifle at Dale’s speeding SUV. They’ve been shooting at his vehicle for the past ten minutes as they’ve chased him down. Lucy rolls her eyes as Diego and Julie manage to miss,  _ again _ . Dale’s car speeds ahead and Lucy groans. 

The idiot had bolted from inside the house and sped off desperately in his SUV, and of course they’d had no choice but to follow. And while she generally enjoyed  _ a little bit  _ of chase now and then, saddled with these idiots, she couldn’t even  _ enjoy  _ it. A total fucking bummer if you asked her. 

They finally catch up to his car which has come to a halt, the engine no doubt too riddled in bullets to move any further. Diego smiles at the apparent victory as he and Julie bombard the silver car with even more bullets. After a few moments the air settles around them and they watch the vehicle for any signs of life. When they don’t see any movement, or more importantly any blood, Diego pounds his fist against the steering wheel “Fuck!”

They exit the car, scanning their surroundings for any movement. 

“This way” Diego instructs, pointing towards the right. 

Lucy generally hates taking orders outside of those from Jonah, but especially from someone who couldn’t even hit a target properly and believed himself to be her superior. She frowns unsettled by the thought. 

Lucy trails behind them as they continue to search for any signs of Dale, chuckling idly to herself.

“Yeah? Now what? Say something stupid and I will shoot you” Diego threatens turning back to her. 

She rolls her eyes at him snorting derisively, “Yeah? Like you shot Dale, bang in the head?” 

Julie chastises her from behind him, “Karolina!”

Diego’s eyes widen at the name, “She’s the ex? Now I have all the more reason to blow her to pieces. Why is she even here?!” he lifts his rifle up to her, face red in anger. 

“I was sent to get Julie” Lucy responds cooly. 

Julie eyes her as she steps around Diego and away to his side. “For what?”

Lucy takes a few steps towards her cautiously. “You gave me a way out of  _ there _ . Now I’m giving you your way out of  _ that _ ” she points towards Diego who looks between them confusedly. 

He turns his eyes to Julie, pleadingly, “Hey, hey hey, pumpkin, what are you doing?”

Lucy continues, “You are not a pumpkin. You’re beautiful.”

Diego turns to her, anger burning in his eyes, “You! Shut up!”

Julie swiftly and expertly disposes him of his rifle while Lucy aims a well trained arm at him. 

Julie holds her hand up, “Let me.” She steps out from behind Diego, watching as his eyes beg for mercy and he begins to blubber incoherently, tears streaming messily down his face. 

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. _ I am not a pumpkin _ ” she says coldly as she shoots him point blank in the head. His body drops to the ground with a soft thud. 

Lucy smiles before striding over and passionately kissing Julie, whose face is beaming at their reunion. 

“Wherever you want to go” she sweetly promises to her. “Check the boot and I’ll start the car” she lets go of her, entering the car as Julie rounds the back of the van. She turns the radio on, an old 80’s pop song flowing from the stereo system. 

Lucy watches from the rearview mirror as Julie reaches towards the trunk door. She smirks as she puts the car in reverse and quickly applies pressure to the gas pedal. Julie’s screams are muffled by the sound of the radio. 

She pulls forward again, relishing in the loud  _ crunch  _ of bones snapping under the weight of heavy steel - a beautiful symphony that fills her with a satisfaction she’d desperately needed.

_ Finally _

\-------------------------------------

“Dale? Are you there? Speak to me. Where are you?” Nico says as she walks towards a pathway. 

“They’ve got guns” he whispers harshly. “I’m hiding!”

“Dale, listen. We’re tracking you. We’ll find you. Just stay quiet okay?”

He nods dumbly, “Uh huh.”

“Dale. I need you to move north.” she says as Chase and Molly approach her location in the car.

“What?! Where the bloody hell is north?!” he whispers into the receiver frantically.

“Oh, right. Sorry. Uhm…” Nico looks around her, trying to find a landmark that could point him towards the right direction. “Do you see a phone line mast? It has a plastic bag tied around it.”

“Yeah. Yes. I can get there” he responds with shaky breaths.

“Okay. Just stay low and run” she says with a sigh.

“Shit. Nico. They’re coming back.” he says in a whisper as he watches the grey van from before nearing in the distance.

“We’re on our way to you now. You have to run, Dale. Run!” She shouts into the phone as she hops into the car. 

Molly turns to her, “So.. some updates: the house in Bletcham that called Dale? It's already in our system. Belongs to a woman called Veronica Hill - she’s suspected Russian intelligence.”

Chase nods, “He is up to his neck in this stuff.” He checks over the GPS, “He’s 500 yards away.”

“We have to get him now! Stop at the next gate. He has to get to us by foot.” Nico responds.

She places the phone back over her ear, “Dale? Dale, we’re at the top of the field. You need to make a run for it okay? Dale are you running or are you crying?” she says with a frown.

On the other end of the line, Dale blubbers incoherently before answering, “Running... and crying.”

They stop the car at the last gate, looking through the narrow pathway leading downhill for Dale. When he appears at the end of it, his clothes are covered in dirt and tears and snot are flowing freely into his beard. Nico hops out of the passenger seat, preparing to let him take her place next to Chase.

She walks around the back to get in beside Molly as another running figure approaches them. Dale jumps into the now vacant passenger seat, screaming at Chase to drive, but Nico is frozen. There running towards them is  _ Lucy.  _ Her blonde waves are tied back into a high ponytail, her boot-clad feet running deftly and her arm straight out, holding a steady aimed gun directly at them. 

They lock eyes - just for a moment, and a sense of deja-vu hits Nico like a tonne of bricks, before one singular shot rings out. 

Startled murders of crows fly out from the treeline into the suddenly darkening sky. 


	6. bathe in the glow, bathe in the fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well we're getting a little canon divergent here as Karolina and Nico meet face to face again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry with how late this is, but given the state of the world currently, I can't really promise much. I'll try my best to continue this to the end anyway. Who else is losing their mind over the fact that the new season of Killing Eve is coming out next week? 
> 
> Enjoy xx

“Oh My God” Molly whispers.

Nico opens her eyes, having immediately shut them at the sound of the gunshot. Everyone in the car is breathing heavily, feelings alternating between fear and relief that no one had been harmed. 

Lucy shoots another bullet at the side of the car and Molly screams. 

_ Well, that was short-lived _

Dale starts to panic, “Okay Drive. Drive now! Come On! Go!” 

But Nico is still standing outside of the car and she shuts the door as she continues to watch Lucy standing with her arm at the ready. 

Chase shakes his head at her, “What are you doing, Nico? Are you completely insane?”

Nico barely registers his words, but responds anyway, “I’m gonna go talk to her.”

Dale stutters, “B-but, she’s been trying to kill me! We need to go!”

Chase’s hands tighten around the steering wheel. 

Nico continues, “She’s waiting for something. She’s waiting for me.”

Molly’s eyes widen, “Nico! She’s an actual assassin. She’s here to kill  _ him _ !” she says as she points to Dale. 

Chase speaks up, “Nico, we’ll catch her again okay? And then you can do whatever it is that you want to do with her, but right now, stop being a dick.”

When Nico ignores his words and hesitantly begins to approach Lucy, he debates leaving her, but instead waits with bated breath. 

Nico has no idea what she’s doing. She feels like her feet and body are leading her against her brain’s wishes and she knows this is the dumbest idea she’s possibly ever had, but something tells her that  _ she _ won’t hurt her. 

She and Lucy continue to lock eyes, neither backing down, but Nico is acutely aware of the gun still trained on her. She raises a hand up, somewhere between a _ hi _ and a  _ please stop.  _ Lucy watches her, her expression blank, but her eyes curious. 

Nico eyes the gun in her hand fearfully and her eyes widen as she watches Lucy raise the gun and place it against her own temple. 

Nico’s voice is shaky when she reaches out with a loud “No!”

Lucy smiles and for the first time in years, it feels entirely genuine. Her heart is racing and she lets out a soft laugh before shooting at the ground next to Nico’s feet. She needed to get away now, she’d have to deal with getting Dale later, which would be much easier now that she was working alone again. 

Nico jumps, watching as dirt and dust swirl up from the ground next to her. By the time she looks up again, Lucy is gone and her comrades are watching her with wide eyes from the car. 

\--------------------------------------------------------

“So, what happens now?” Dale asks as they sit around a small wooden table in the kitchen of what is only known to them as a “safe house.” 

“Who is she?” Nico interrupts.

“I don’t know. We didn’t exactly chat much.” he responds.

Janet watches from the doorway, having coordinated to meet them there. 

“So there were three of them, and they didn’t say a word to each other? Come on Dale!” Nico shouts before heading towards the coffee maker and fixing herself a cup.

“Where are your kids?” Janet asks curiously. 

“With my mother-in-law” he responds around a large bite of a gas station sandwich.

“Okay, text her and tell her you need them to stay there a few nights. Use mine. They’ll be tracking yours.” Janet hands him her cellphone. 

“You know, I did this for the right reason” he says once he’s done.

“I don’t want to hear what your version of the right reason is.” Nico scoffs. 

“Could you just not give me a hard time? Just for a minute, please? I’m very tired.” Dale says as he begins to tear up.

“God. Who would spend that much money on that man?” Molly rolls her eyes. 

  
  


Dale sniffles before speaking again, “Karolina.”

“What?” 

“One of the girls, I overheard the other call her Karolina.” he continues.

Janet nods towards Chase, “Search prison records for that name”

He nods before beginning to type on his cellphone as he walks out towards a hallway. 

A burly man enters the kitchen area from outside and jerks a thumb towards the hallway. 

“So, shall I show you to your room?” he asks as Dale finishes his sandwich, a glob of mustard falling onto both into his beard and onto his shirt. He scurries up from the table and Nico and Janet follow. 

“Do you have a moist wipe?” he asks the man as they walk down the corridor. 

“No,” he points towards the small bathroom, “This is your own personal safe house salon. There’s toothpaste, toothbrush, soap and shampoo in the cupboard.” he continues towards an adjacent room, “This is where the magic happens. All the windows are secured so you don’t need to worry about any tapping on the glass at night. And I’ll be here the whole time for anything you might need, other than a cuddle” he says with a chuckle, “Happily married, not one to stay.” 

Dale almost looks disappointed and Janet and Nico stare blankly at the host’s joke. 

He excuses himself and leaves them to try to get some more answers out of Dale. 

He turns to them, eyes pleading, “Look what I’ve done is nowhere near as bad as what a lot of people have done to save their families, okay?”

Nico sighs, “We chased the money, we know you’re on the payroll. So you might as well start talking. What do they want?”

Dale’s eyes widen and he starts to pant lightly, “I think - I think I’m having an anxiety attack. My arms… they - they feel numb. Can you get me a doctor?” he begins to hyperventilate dramatically and Nico rolls her eyes as Janet attempts to comfort him.

“Just breathe, Dale. In and out, in and out - that’s it.”

“Can I go and have a bath or change my clothes? I’ll tell you everything after, please?”

Janet nods, “You can have five minutes to get changed and you’ll be escorted.”

“Thank you” he responds before leaving and walking into the adjacent bathroom where the host is already waiting. 

Molly approaches them in the hallway with a frown, “Well, okay, it looks like you guys have got this. So, with all due respect, I’m gonna head back to East London, grab three bottles of wine and cry-hump my ex until the memory of this traumatic day evaporates.” 

Nico nods, “I understand.”

Molly turns towards Janet, “Other than that, Janet, I had an amazing day.” She offers her a small smile before turning away and walking back down the hallway to the exit. 

When Dale re-emerges in fresh clothing. Nico looks up, ready to yell at him some more, but Janet beats her to the punch, instead, wrapping her arms around him, “It’s okay Dale. It’s all gonna be okay” she soothes as he begins to sob quietly into her shoulder. 

When he’s calmed enough, they head into the room and he takes a seat on the bed, Janet sitting across from him as Nico stands by the door. 

“Just tell me who these people are” she asks softly.

“They call themselves The Twelve. They know everything about me.”

“They blackmail you?”

“No,” he shakes his head, “No, worse. They offered to pay for my wife’s medical treatment. They knew everything about her condition, my Stacey. They knew the NHS wouldn’t even offer for certain treatments for cancer without private patient funding these days. I had no other option.”

“You can’t possibly blame the NHS for this” Nico says. 

“No, of course not. I blame the government.” he says heatedly.

“What information did they want from you?” she asks.

“They just want to know what conversations are being had. They’re interested in the big picture.”

“Information about Russia?”

“No. Although the agent was Russian and we drank a lot, so I just assumed I thought they were SVR. Standard Russian government agents who wanted a little inside gossip, people’s whereabouts I don’t know. They just wanted to know anything and everything. I just wanted my wife to be okay. I didn’t know they would go after Victor. I think she took your department rather personally.”

“And how do they know about the department?” Janet asks. 

“I told them. I thought you were still investigating after the interrogation.” he responds. 

“Why didn’t you come to us?” 

“I didn’t want to get caught here and I thought the Russians would help” he shrugs.

“And the girl?” Janet asks.

“Yes, well they’re very proud of her. There’s a sequence. A pattern to these kills. They’re destabilizing from the ground up.” 

“To what end?” she continues.

“Chaos” he responds grimly. 

\-------------------------------------------

Nico dials Chase’s number from the hall, desperate for any matches for the name they’d been given.  _ Karolina _

“Any matches yet?” she asks as soon as he picks up.

“Nothing yet. I’m still working on it though. By the way, the suitcase came back positive for the same DNA found at the scenes” he responds and she can hear him typing in the background. 

Either Lucy was deliberately leaving her DNA behind, knowing anything would be cleaned up by her superiors or she was getting lazy, she thinks, but she files it away as something to circle around later. 

“Okay. Uhm, well, Dale said the organization calls themselves ‘The Twelve’” she responds.

He furrows his brow from the other end;  _ a strange number.  _

“Hm.. okay. Is Molly okay?” he asks cautiously.

“Yeah, she’s taking the afternoon off and gone home already. You should give her a call... I’ve gotta go. Thanks Chase ” she says with a soft smile. As much as he poked fun at her, she knew he cared for her, cared for them all really. 

“Okay, bye.” he responds before hanging up. 

Janet walks up to her in the hallway, a soft sigh escaping her lips as she stops and stands. “Police have confirmed that they’ve found a male body in the site near where you picked up Dale. They’re gonna keep us informed.”

“There are three of them. Someone is unaccounted for” she narrows her eyes. 

“Apparently so” Janet nods. Nico sighs.

“Do you need an escort home?” Janet asks her.

“No, thank you. I think I’m just gonna walk. It would be good to help process everything, I guess.” Nico says with a soft smile.

‘Right. Well then, we’ll catch up later” Janet offers a soft smile back before heading back towards the kitchen. 

Nico pulls her coat closer to her body and walks out of the exit door at the end of the corridor. 

She peers around her, noting that the weather has cleared, the early afternoon showers leaving behind gray and cloudless skies - typical London weather.

Despite knowing that she should head home, she decides to head back into the office instead.

When she opens the heavy glass door, she finds Kenny sat, staring at Victor’s desk. 

She startles him as the door closes behind her, the loud buzzer sound following. 

“Sorry” she offers with a weak smile.

“It’s okay” he smiles back. 

“He’s gonna be okay, Chase. He’s stabilized and it’ll take time, but he’s still here.” she says. 

He nods, “Yeah, I know. I uh - I found some prison records,” he starts as he turns around and heads back towards his desk area, “on various Karolina’s around Russia and Ukraine. There’s one that I really want to show you.” he gestures for her to join him at his desk.

He awkwardly fumbles through some open tabs, blushing as Nico noticies one for a dating site. 

“Here it is, Karolina Ivanov. She fits the profile perfectly, except - well, she died in prison. Four years ago.” he says as Nico looks through.

“What? Why was she there?” she asks, checking over the profile.

“She, erm, she killed a guy and did some pretty weird things to him.”

“Like what?” Nico asks.

“She um, chopped his knob off” he finishes with a wince.

“Jesus.” Nico says as her eyes peer over the prison photo on file. It was her. She looks younger, her skin paler, less healthy and her hair cut short. Her face blank, but her stare - purely murderous.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Nico gets home, she’s exhausted. Walking had been great in theory, but she’d finally maxed out on adrenaline for the day and by the end of it, she’d regretted both not ordering an uber from the office and not charging her phone at all. 

She pulls off her boots and coat, placing them in the coat closet next to the entryway and heads upstairs to her bedroom. The now returned suitcase greets her as she walks towards the couch and she shudders - whether from fear or excitement, she isn’t sure. 

She wonders where Lucy went after their encounter. Wonders if she’s thinking about her as much as she is. She takes a moment, knowing she shouldn’t -  _ fuck it _

She tugs the suitcase onto the floor, opening it and rifling through the clothes inside. She lays silk blouses, skirts, dresses and a pants suit set onto the couch, her eyes flashing over a beautiful midnight blue slip gown with black embroidered details. It’s exactly her style of slip, much more fitting for a ‘reformed’ goth, but elegant enough for a runway. She quickly strips off her clothes and showers before coming back into her room and gazing longingly at the gown.

She slips it on. The luxurious material feels both intoxicatingly good and _sickening _against her skin and she knows she shouldn’t enjoy this as much as she does. She sprays a few spritzes of the perfume onto her neck and wrists, breathing in deeply as if she could memorize the scent. She wonders if _she_ wears this exact one, wonders if _she_ alternates perfumes and scents based on her disguises, fully immersing herself into the convincing characters she uses to slay those unsuspecting targets.

  
  


She walks over to her full length mirror in the huge walk-in closet and admires how good it looks on her. She tosses her long black hair over her shoulder, admiring her features; her sharp cheekbones and jawline, her eyes, dark with dilated pupils, still bearing traces of the black eyeliner she’d put on in the morning. She chuckles lightly to herself. Lingerie was an expense she could never really justify buying for herself, nor for her lovers both past and present.

She heads downstairs, deciding that the perfect way to end her day would be deep into a bottle of red wine and maybe some mindless television until she passes out. Alex was working late on a big project with his team at work and likely would end up going back to his own place to avoid waking her up, knowing she’d have to be up early for work tomorrow. 

She stops by the small cupboard under the stairs, pulling out a bottle from the wine fridge stored there. When she reaches the kitchen, her blood runs cold and the wine bottle falls limply from her hand, the thick glass rolling away on the hardwood floors. Sitting perfectly still at her dining room table is the woman she can’t seem to get off her mind at all these days. 

Lucy speaks softly, “Don’t run.”

Naturally, the first thing Nico does, is just that.

She dashes wildly up the stairs, closing herself into the bathroom and roughly opening cabinets and cupboards in an attempt to find something, anything, she can use to defend herself.  _ Do I even really need to defend myself?  _ part of her mind questions - the other part calls her a  _ dumbass  _ and tells her to keep bloody looking. 

  
  
  
  
  


Lucy fiddles with the knob, trying to twist it open and all Nico can do is scream. 

“Open the door! Open it!”

“- Help! Help me!” Nico screams, caught somewhere between continuing on and realizing that there’s no way anyone can hear her in a completely enclosed bathroom without a window. 

Lucy frustratedly bangs her fist to the door, “I am not going to hurt you! Please! Just open it, or I will break it.” 

Nico’s eyes widened at the threat, “No! No!” she shouts from inside the bathtub.

“Open this shit door!” Lucy growls before bracing herself and kicking the door open with brute force.

Nico pales once the door is open. She’s completely frozen and still screaming despite it all. 

Lucy rushes to her, “Listen to me. Listen! Stop it! I’m not going to hurt you.” When all Nico does in response is continue to scream, she rolls her eyes and turns the shower head on. Cold water rushes out and completely drenches her, stunning her into silence.

Lucy’s eyes rake over Nico’s form in the slip and she can’t help but smile as she turns the water off.

Nico shivers and blinks slowly, but doesn’t move. 

Lucy backs away from her, seemingly shy. “I just want to have dinner with you. Okay?”

“Okay.” Nico nods before stepping out of the bathtub. 

She’s entirely too stiff as they walk down the stairs. Lucy trails her, watching her every movement. 

“Um, I don’t really have much to offer you,” she says as she looks through the fridge. 

Lucy stands behind her, almost close enough to maybe try to punch and make a getaway. Close enough to  _ touch _ . Nico shakes her head at the thought. 

“I will eat anything. Thank you” she responds quietly. 

“There’s some leftover stew. I can warm it on the stovetop, but the microwave would be faster.” 

“Microwave is fine” Lucy says taking a seat at the dining room table and sighing gently. 

Nico pours the stew into a dark blue bowl, placing it in the microwave to heat. She waits at the island, trying to keep distance between them. 

“You’re shaking” Lucy states from her seat. “You should change into something from there,” she points towards the coat closet, “I won’t look.”

Nico nods, slowly walking over to the coat closet and rifles around quickly. She pulls out an old light blue cashmere sweater dress her mother had given her as a gift a couple years back. She’d shoved it in there and never looked back - it wasn’t exactly her style and it was both too tight and too bright for her taste, but she had no other options at this point. 

She trembles as she removes the slip, unsure if it’s from the cold or the burning weight of eyes staring at her back. 

When she turns around again, Lucy is still staring at her, eyes roaming her figure once more, slowly moving up to meet hers.

“You have a very nice body” she says evenly. 

Nico blushes, but doesn’t respond to the compliment. She heads back into the kitchen, taking her time to grab the heated stew so that she can slyly attempt to grab the paring knife she’d noticed on the counter earlier. 

“Do you want me to set the table?” Lucy asks, already motioning to stand.

“No, no, you’re my guest.” Nico rushes out as she desperately flips the knife into her dress sleeve. 

She gently places the bowl of stew in front of Lucy before taking a seat across from her. 

“It’s so nice to meet you” Lucy says with a small smile. 

“You too” Nico responds uneasily. She isn’t sure what to make of this ‘dinner.’ And sure as hell doesn’t understand what Lucy wants of her. 

She clears her throat, “Why are you here?”

Lucy delicately swallows a spoonful of stew before speaking, “This is good. Did you make this?”

“No.”

“Your boyfriend then?”

Nico nods, “Yes.”

When Lucy doesn’t acknowledge her earlier question, she asks her again, “Why are you in my house?”

“I wanted to see you. I need someone to help me,” Lucy says after a final bite of stew. She takes a deep steady breath, looking up at Nico with pleading eyes, her expression portraying painful remorse. 

“I don’t want to do this anymore. I know what I am. I know I’m not normal. I...I don’t feel things that I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt your partner. I don’t want to hurt people. They… make me do it. If I don’t do what they say Nico… I have nowhere to go. I need help. Nico.. I’m so sorry.” 

Nico takes a startled breath before laughing maniacally “Bullshit... Bullshit!”

Lucy stares at her in disbelief before a slow smirk begins to form on her face as Nico continues.

“God. You’re an asshole.  _ Karolina _ . You are so pleased with yourself. I know more than that too.”

“Do you?” Lucy asks, leaning over the table curiously. 

“I have your prison file. I know you’re Russian. I know you were in a prison in Moscow for five years until someone broke you out. I know you’re exceptionally bright, determined, hardworking. You’re an extraordinary person. You’re a psychopath. I know something happened to you.” Nico finishes, leaning back in her chair, watching Lucy’s reaction. 

Lucy places a fist under her chin, pensively, “You should never tell a psychopath that they are psychopath. It upsets them.” 

“Are you upset?” Nico asks

“Stupid word” Lucy rolls her eyes. 

“Are you here to kill me?”

“We’re just watching you. For now.” Lucy responds easily.

“Who? Who do you work for? And why are you killing these people?” Nico asks in a flurry.

Lucy eyes her with an unreadable expression, “Do you not know? Do you know who  **you** work for?”

Nico blinks in surprise, “Yes.”

“Really? I think if you went high enough, you’d probably find we work for the same people” Lucy says with a shrug. 

She gets up and places her now empty bowl and spoon into the kitchen sink, running the water to rinse them as a good houseguest might do. 

Nico watches her in a daze before remembering the knife tucked into her sleeve and makes possibly the worst decision of her life before rushing up towards Lucy’s turned back. In an instant she is pushed against the adjacent wall and harshly so. One strong hand wrapped around the knife she’d previously been holding, pointing it towards her abdomen, the blade just barely touching her skin through the thin layer of cashmere material; the other gently, but firmly wrapped around her throat with just enough pressure to constrain her, but not enough pressure to limit her breathing or speech. She weakly attempts to struggle, but begins to slacken her grip as Lucy speaks.

Lucy tuts gently as she leans down and closer to Nico’s ear, “Don’t do that. It’s worse when I push it through slowly. Don’t make me” she threatens. 

And while Nico is undeniably and absolutely filled with fear for her life ending _ right now _ , she feels a jolt of something like desire hit her like a freight train and  _ holy shit, that’s even more terrifying _ , she thinks. 

  
  


Lucy leans in closer, the tip of her nose hovering over the smooth skin of Nico’s neck. As she leans back with a smile, Nico can feel goosebumps erupting over her skin. “Are you wearing it?” she asks, referring to the perfume she’d left her in the returned suitcase. 

Nico can only nod, her eyes wide in trepidation. 

“Where is your phone?” Lucy asks her suddenly.

“In my bag, it’s hanging off the staircase banister by the front door.”

“Your pin?”

Nico knows she could lie, but she doesn’t. “1234.”

“Thank you” Lucy says as the doorbell rings. Nico’s startled by the sound, but even more startled by the gentle kiss that’s placed on her cheek before the hand on her throat and the knife pointed at her abdomen are both gone in a flash. 

The doorbell rings again and she watches completely frozen as Lucy swiftly grabs her phone and the slip she’d been wearing before opening the door and smiling brightly at Alex’s drunk figure. 

“Thanks for all your help!” she calls out over her shoulder as she breezes past him. 

Alex quirks an eyebrow and shuts the door before stumbling into the kitchen.

“S-sorry. I left my keysss at work and this was closer than going back to my flat,” he slurs. 

Nico sobers quickly, “It’s okay. Just get in bed, I’ve got something to do, I’ll be back later.” 

He nods before slumping over onto the couch in the living room and promptly falling asleep. 

She sighs and wraps her coat tightly around herself, slipping on a pair of black soft boots before heading back out into the cool London air. 

\----------------------------------------------------------

When she reaches Janet’s door, she can tell that there’s some sort of party going on inside, but rings the bell desperately anyway. 

Janet opens it abruptly, her expression a bit startled at first, before turning apprehensive, “Nico. Hi... Are you alright?”

Nico pulls her coat tighter around herself, “I’m sorry. I couldn’t call. She took my phone. She was in my house, we had a sort of fight, I think and - wait, are you having a party inside? I’m sorry, I-”

Janet interrupts her, “It’s okay, it’s okay. Come in. It’s just dinner.”

She steps aside to let Nico in through the large wooden entryway. Janet leads her into the kitchen and dining area where a handsome older man sits at the dinner table which is clearly set for two. He smiles politely before standing up and heading towards another room in the expansive home. 

Nico smiles back, “Sorry for interrupting”

Janet grabs her glass of chardonnay from the table and waves her off, “Oh, it’s just an old friend. Not to worry.”

She takes a sip before calling towards a well-hidden and minimal staircase, “Chase, would you join us?”

Nico’s eyes dart up curiously and she watches him descend from the stairs. 

“Chase is my son.” Janet continues, “We have no time for you to react to that, so don’t feel that you have to.” 

Nico nods.

“Are you hurt?” Janet probes.

“No. She took my phone. It has the interview with Dale on it and she’ll have the location of the safe house. I used it to get us there.” Nico adds with a frown.

Janet nods, “All right. I’m going to alert armed response.”

Nico starts to panic then. Were they too late? Was Dale even still alive? She couldn’t shake the weight of his imminent death on her shoulders. His kids would be orphans. All because she’d been what?...  _ seduced _ by a beautiful and brilliant serial killer? Her mind flashes with images of Lucy’s smirk, the knife tip pressed against her abdomen, the feeling of her soft lips pressed ever so gently against her cheek, just barely there, like a  _ ghost _ . 

“We need to move Dale, now.” she tells them.

“Alright, well. I’ve got the pudding to do so - “

Chase interrupts, “Yeah, uh sure. Will you still save -”

“Save you some? Sure.” Janet nods.

Chase awkwardly nods back, “Thank you.”

“Yes.” Janet says with another sip of wine.

Nico stares at them a moment before deciding they’d have to unpack  _ that  _ at a much later date.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dale is just about to head to bed after brushing his teeth when Lucy opens the bathroom door, gun in hand. 

“Oh God! Oh God! Someone!” he shouts, hearing nothing but silence in response. He looks around him, the window completely barred, no chance of escape. 

She points the gun at him, her face serious, “Squealer.” 

He stutters, “N-no. I’m - I didn’t tell them everything. Are you going to kill me?”

“Mmhmm” she says with a nod, her eyes flashing brightly. “But first I’m going to use you for sex.” 

He freezes, face paling.

She bursts into a fit of laughter, “It’s just a joke!” 

He shakes as tears begin to roll down his face, “Please! Please. We can do a deal. I have a lot of money.”

She shakes her head, “So do I.”

“I have children” he begs.

She twists her face in disgust, “I don’t want your children.”

“No, I have children to take care of.”

“Oh!” she says with a chuckle. She shrugs, “This will give them something to bond over.”

“Are you scared?” she asks him.

“Yes.”

“Because you don’t know what happens when you die?”

“You have any ideas?” he retorts.

“Your eyes will just empty. Then your soul goes in... People think that your soul or personality, whatever, just leaves the body when you die. I swear, it just goes further in. It falls so far in and just becomes so small that it can’t control your body anymore. It’s just in there, dying forever” she responds, a distant expression on her face. 

He nods slowly, ‘Mmm”

“I’m going to kill you nicely, but then I’m going to make a mess of your body afterwards so it looks worse than it is. Just so you know, okay?” she says as she approaches him.

He holds up a shaking hand, “Wait, please, can we do it in the bedroom?”

“I have a thing for bathrooms, actually, but okay.” she shrugs. 

She leads him into the bedroom, gun steadily trained on him. 

“Take off your clothes” she instructs. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When they reach the safehouse, the security tape is already up around the perimeter. Nico can feel her stomach clenching in dread, but follows Chase in anyway. 

A young officer approaches them and updates them before they reach the halfway to the bedroom, “The first room is clear. We have one male in need of urgent medical assistance.” 

They watch as the host they’d been working with pases them on a stretcher, blood staining his head. 

“Dale?” Nico asks. He points to the bedroom but shakes his head. “In there m’aam.” 

  
  


Chase heads towards the door first, holding Nico back as she approaches the entryway. 

“She, um...she -” 

Nico sighs, “Just say it.”

“She chopped his knob off” he finishes with a slight blush.

“Right” she sighs, looking inside to find Dale’s body lying still on the bed, dried blood splattered on the sheets, his legs spread open to indicate exactly what Chase had said. Nico blood freezes when she realizes that his corpse is dressed in the exact slip she’d been wearing just hours earlier.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lucy hates when Jonah is actually angry with her. It always made things a little more difficult for their dynamic and was decidedly  _ not fun _ . 

“Diego and Julie were fighting” she begins to explain as Jonah removes his gloves upon entering her apartment. He places them on the kitchen counter before whipping around to shove her against the wall. 

“And then?”

“Ugh. He just went backwards. I was screaming. Julie put something in the back of the car and bang! - he hit her. Told me to get out of the car and we just walked away. I had no weapon. He said he was going to kill me, I said, ‘why? why? We’re meant to be a team! we have to get the target!’ He said we were... uh, what was the word? Pumpkins!” 

“So?”

“So I shot him” she shrugs.

He chuckles lowly, “Oh? I thought you had no weapon.”

“I took his.”

“While he was pointing it at you?” Jonah asks with a quirked eyebrow.

She sighs, “I didn’t want to tell you this part of the story because I knew you would be jealous. I had to use my tits.”

“To kill him? You killed him with your tits?” He asks skeptically.

“No! When he was looking at them, I took his gun.” she says exasperatedly.

“Ah, I see”

“It was so sad, you know?”

“Mmm-hmm” he nods as he lets her go. She massages her neck as she continues, “I liked having a team, but you can’t trust anyone, huh? You told me that.” 

“Julie is still alive” he says, his expression stony. 

“No,” Lucy says urgently, “No, he - he went over her. Twice.”

Jonah shakes his head, “I think you should go and visit her before she starts telling her side of the story.” 

“Where is she?”

“Russia” he says evenly.

Her eyes widened, “No.”

“You have no choice. No one else can do it. It’s too suspicious. Don’t worry. You can come straight back” he says with a flick of the wrist before taking a seat. 

Lucy begins to pace, already dreading having to go back  _ there _ . She’d vowed to never go back after she’d gotten out of prison. 

She stops in front of him, eyeing him suspiciously, “What number are you?” 

“What?” he asks, puzzled.

“You’re not 12” she sighs as she drops dramatically onto the couch. 


	7. Flesh and bones, giving in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Janet relives her sexual exploits with enemy agents, Nico takes charge and Karolina just wants to gtfo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance for how long it will take me to get the next chapter out. 
> 
> In the meantime, I hope you enjoy. Things will get much less canon in the coming chapters. 
> 
> I still can't believe the latest episode happened - the writers truly said you can have a little #gayrights, as a treat. 
> 
> Happy May Day Comrades!
> 
> Title from Cherry Glazerr's "Wasted Nun"

“Your name is Natalia Popova.” Jonah says as he pulls the car to a stop. The air is frigid, the sky is cloudy and grey, and Lucy is nervous. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a braided ponytail that hangs to the side. She’s wearing a black overcoat and black long-sleeved romper, feeling just as much like she’s prepared to attend her own funeral - just as she did her first time here. 

She’d spent so much of her life in this god forsaken city and she’d never wanted to see it again. 

“Mm-hmm” she responds, idly fiddling with the knobs on the car’s defunct radio system. 

“Stop it” Jonah slaps her hands away. “You’re in because you stole some hats.” he continues. 

“Wow, I am dangerous. They must’ve been some pretty expensive hats.” she rolls her eyes. 

“Once you’re inside, you have to find a way to see the doctor. Okay? That’s important. Now say it back to me.” he says sternly. 

“Why have you never tried to have sex with me?” she asks him suddenly, not bothering to follow his command. 

He sighs, “This is a very important job for you. I know you’re nervous. But you don’t have to be. You go in, you find the doctor, kill Julie and come out.”

“And what if someone recognizes me?” she asks quietly, suddenly fearful. 

Jonah shakes his head softly, “No, they won’t. It’s been years since you’ve been here.”

“You will collect me afterwards?” she asks meekly and Jonah knows that the fear and anxiety she feels now, is all real. 

“I swear in my heart. Just a few days and I pick you up” he replies. 

She nods before stepping out of the car. An armored van pulls up and a guard opens the back door to let her in. She begrudgingly does so, watching wistfully as Jonah slowly drives away.

She’s buzzed through a set of doors, guards moving her into the intake area. 

The gates and doors lock behind her, the jarring sound rattling her mind, but she pushes through. 

A uniformed and armed woman smirks maliciously before shoving her into the wall and instructing her in Russian to undress. 

As dogs bark aggressively in the distance, Lucy feels the bruises already forming around her back and arms and sighs softly. They perform a cavity check before shoving her into her new cell.

“I need to see the doctor!” she tells the guard standing in the doorway. The woman laughs before firmly shutting the door, the lock loudly sliding into place. 

_ This is going to be harder than I thought _

* * *

“Her name is Julie Powers. Russian intelligence picked her up near Bletcham and took her out of the country.” Chase explains.

“So she was the other assassin with Lucy?” Nico asks, taking a seat across from him in the office. 

He nods. “She’s been taken to a prison outside of Moscow. The same one that Karolina - er, Lucy was in four years ago.” 

“What? Is there any way we can speak to her? She might know how to get to Lucy.” She asks.

“If this girl is a lead to anything, it’s the Twelve.” Molly adds. 

Janet takes a moment to think, “There are some… delicate strings I could pull. Perhaps they’re worth a tug” she smiles. 

“All of us?” Nico asks excitedly. 

“I- I think, I’ll let you guys go on” Molly says looking between them all. 

“I better stay here in case you need anything from the base,” Chase smiles awkwardly. 

“Okay…” Nico looks towards Janet, “So just you and me then?”

Janet smiles, “To Moscow.”

* * *

“Yo!” Alex shouts as he opens the door. When he doesn’t hear a response, he walks towards the back of the house, sliding the glass door to the backyard open to find Nico sitting on the steps. 

“Are you smoking?” he asks, watching wisps of smoke fly out towards the sky.

“Yep.” she says with her exhale. When he says nothing further, she turns towards him, “Are you okay?”

He sighs, “Yeah, I just - I don’t like this and I’m worried about you. First Vic gets attacked, then I hear about that guy you used to work with being _ butchered.. _ .”

“- I’m fine and we’re making progress” she replies interrupting him flippantly. 

He scoffs, “You can’t just treat this like a game, Nico! I know you love this job, but how many more people have to die before you complete this level?”

Nico narrows her eyes at him.

“Why are you so angry about this?” 

He slams his fist against the wall behind them, his voice rises in frustration, “Nico! I’m not angry, I’m scared! I don’t want to wake up one day and find out that you’re dead, okay? Damn it, I don’t want to shout at you either.” He reaches out to her, but she recoils from his touch. 

He sighs, “Nico, I love you, but I’m just scared that you think you’re out here saving the world when in reality, you’re just digging your own grave deeper and deeper.” 

She takes another drag of her cigarette, but doesn’t respond. 

“I’ve got a work thing so I - I’m just gonna - “

She interrupts him, “Move in with me.”

“What?”

She turns to him, “I think maybe we’d both feel better if you were living here, with me. It’d be safer and you’d wake up with me next to you, every day. You’d see that I’m okay.” She reaches her hand out to grab his, “I’m right here and I’m going to continue to be, I promise.” 

He smiles softly, “Yeah, okay.” He stoops down to give her a wet kiss. She ignores the way her stomach twists and deepens the kiss as she ignores the way her mind flashes with images of blonde hair, piercing blue eyes and pink, gentle lips. 

* * *

“God my bones come alive in this country” Janet sighs as they walk through the airport terminal.

“Have you got any lip balm? Flying dries my skin out something rotten.” she continues. 

When Nico doesn’t respond, she waves a hand in front of her face.

“Oh, Uh, Sorry. No” she offers with a sheepish expression. 

Janet rolls her eyes as Nico stuffs her hands into her pockets. The airport felt just as cold as the grey cloudless sky outside.

“What could The Twelve want?” she asks her, tugging her backpack suitcase more firmly onto her back. 

“Well, certainly rolling up to something. I can feel it in my buttocks.” Janet responds. 

Nico nods, “Me too.”

“So Julie was at the same prison as Karolina at the same time. She got an early release for good behavior” Nico explains as they enter a black, window tinted car to get to their hotel. 

“What did she go in for?” Janet asks

“Uhm, drugs and GBH. Looks like she just got mixed up with the wrong people - ” Nico continues. 

“Have you got any lipstick or anything moisturizing at all?” Janet interrupts her. 

“Oh, uhm, yeah,” Nico rummages around the top pocket of her bag and hands her a small tube of lipstick. 

“Thanks.”

“So how long have you known Vladimir?” Nico asks her as they approach the city center. 

“Oh, beyond forever. We’ve been counterparts for about 10 years. He’ll pounce on us the moment we arrive.” 

“Why would he give us access to Julie?” Nico asks furrowing her brows.

“Good old traditional tit for tat” Janet says, tossing her hair over her shoulder. 

“And when you say ‘tit’ - “

Janet eyes her, “It’s an expression.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Nico chuckles to herself awkwardly. 

“Meaning I’ll give him something in return.” Janet continues. 

“Yes, I know... It was a joke” Nico says quietly.

“It’s a very English expression. What’s the joke?” she asks her curiously. 

“Uh, no, It- it doesn’t matter.” Nico blushes.

Janet nods, but her puzzled expression remains, “Hmm okay. I just thought it was a very well-known expression.” She shrugs. 

Nico blushes again and for neither the first, nor the last time in her life, she wished whatever God existed out there would smite her down right now.

* * *

When they arrive at the hotel, Janet rolls her eyes at the bleak decor and strong cigarette odor permeating through the walls. 

“27 years in British intelligence, I just can’t bring myself to book a good hotel.”

Nico shrugs - she’d kind of already assumed any Russian hotel would look like this.

Janet’s phone buzzes loudly from her pocket as she reaches for her passport. She picks up the call and passes Nico her passport as the man behind the check-in counter holds out his hand for both of their passports. Nico passes them to him quickly while Janet speaks into the receiver. 

“Ah, Vladimir. The bar across the square in half an hour. Great.” 

She hangs up and turns to Nico, “Told you.”

Nico rolls her eyes at her. 

“Hm, do you think we’ve got time to change?” 

‘Uh, yeah,” Nico’s eyes scan over Janet’s outfit; a fitted monochrome power suit with a drapey blouse and heeled boots. She looks like an elegantly aged model to Nico, but for some reason seems a bit nervous now,” but you look great.”

Janet shakes her head, “No, give me 15 minutes. We’ll get a head start on the cocktails” she smiles. 

When she’s finished changing - and Nico is beginning to think this woman doesn’t even sleep in anything that isn’t less than formal - they head to the bar they’re supposed to meet Vladimir in. True to her word, Janet had taken precisely 14 minutes to change and one minute to take the elevator down to the ground floor of the hotel. 

“Oh, my God” Nico says in delight as she takes her first sip of the cocktail placed in front of her. “What is this?”

Janet laughs, “They’ve been making it for decades. Isn’t it vicious?”

“God, I want 10 of them,” Nico responds before swallowing the rest of the drink in one shot. 

Janet raises an eyebrow at her, “Personal life?” when Nico nods she continues, “Best not to have one. I should have told you that really. We can’t help what we are.” 

Nico nods, but doesn’t respond verbally. 

“I’m not very good at this sort of thing,” Janet starts and it reminds Nico of their first meeting at that restaurant so long ago. 

“There are some people who are just simply going to do the thing they want to do because they know that, in the long run, it’s better for everyone that it happens that way. But it’s hard for the individuals in their lives to swallow. It’s hard for their families to understand. But don’t for one second forget that you’re trying to make the world safer for everyone” she concludes with a sip of her drink.

Nico nods, letting her words sink in and she knows that Janet is right. She knows that, no matter the danger, no matter the risk, this is what she signed up for. A part of her had always wanted this after all and for once, she felt...alive. 

“I mean, they all die in the end anyway...Turns out I am rather good at that.” Janet says with a laugh before turning to order another round.

* * *

“Vladimir Betkin” the older man who’d just arrived holds out his hand to her.

“Nico Minoru”, she shakes his hand firmly. 

“Pleased to meet you” he says with a smile. 

“So am I in trouble, or do you want something I can never give you?” he asks Janet, taking a seat across from her at the table. 

“Both.” she smirks before taking a sip from her drink. Nico watches them flirt, intrigued as to how Janet can manage to hold so many men within the palm of her hand, constantly balancing danger, treason and passion.

“Da. I have an agent from the office joining.” He says before waving a hand to signal to a waiter to take his order. 

“Off the leash?” Janet quirks a brow at him. 

“Da. I don’t want you, wanting for anything.”

“Aw. Well, that’s thoughtful of you.”

“Oh, I wish it could just be me, but America is keeping us on our toes. You can trust this guy.”

“Who is it?”

Vladimir smiles, “Oh, I think you may have heard of him.” His eyes brighten when an older gentleman approaches their table. 

“Ah, my good associate, Jonah Gib,” he introduces as the man bows his head to greet the table.

The newcomer holds his hand out to Nico, “Jonah” he says simply, a small smile on his lips. 

“Nico Minoru.” 

He nods, “Mm” and turns towards Janet, “And look at you!” his smile grows. 

“Hello, you old ass!” Janet exclaims with a laugh. 

* * *

“Why did you take Julie Powers?” Nico asks.

Vladimir shakes his head confusedly, squinting his eyes in a show of pensiveness, “Who?”

Nico and Janet narrow their eyes at him suspiciously. 

“We know that this woman has been working as a sleeper agent for Russian intelligence in the UK” Janet adds. 

“All right” he relents, “She is more of a... friend.”

“Oh? Well, now she's rather friendly with us. She told us that she was helping Dale Yorkes with safe passage here to you. Why did you want to talk to him?” Janet continues.

Vladimir clasps his hands over the white tablecloth, “He was relevant for a special investigation we had here,” he pauses with a small frown, “We were sad we didn't get to speak to him.” 

Janet leans forward, “Well, we did get to speak to him. He gave us some information about an organization we believe is behind a number of assassinations.

Including your Victor Kedrin. Is your investigation looking into that, too?”

When Vladimir shakes his head, she continues.

“I thought so. Right. Well, I believe rather extraordinarily that we're on the same side here.” She smiles.

Vladimir shrugs, “Isn't that nice? Do you have a name for this organization?”

“Yes.”

Vladimir chuckles, “What is it?”

Janet smirks, “Just set up a meeting with Julie tomorrow morning and we will give you the name and everything else we got from Dale.”

He shakes his head, “It's not appropriate. When Jonah interviews her, you can see for yourselves via video link.”

Janet scoffs, “Uh, no, I want to interview the girl with Nico.”

“And what is so special about Nico?” Vladimir asks. 

“Another female operative broke into my house and attacked me” Nico responds coolly.

“What? Really? What did she want?” Vladimir asks curiously. 

“Dinner.” 

Vladimir laughs while Janet rolls her eyes at him. Nico’s already annoyed at them both by this point. 

“Sorry.” Vladimir says as he tries to compose himself. 

Nico continues, “I believe Julie knew this other operative, Karolina”

“And I know Karolina,” he adds. 

“Their conversations are something we can share with you too if you're interested,” he offers. 

“I have to go,” he continues, “One interview. But you go with them.”

Janet smiles, “Oh, thanks, Vlad. And you can trust that we will share anything we find.”

He chuckles, “Oh no, trust is not necessary Janet. We will record you.”

Janet sighs. 

“I will pick you up tomorrow, then” he says before departing. 

Janet and Nico gather their things and follow suit out of the bar and back to their hotel. 

Janet sighs, “Oh, they hate that we know more than they do. They just hate it.”

“I don’t like him” Nico says as she stares out towards the city streets. 

“Oh, Vlad’s all right. He just wishes he was higher up the -” 

Nico interrupts her, “Jonah. I don’t like him.”

“Oh. All right. Well, they’re no more slippery than we are” Janet replies. 

“I suppose. Are they old friends?” Nico asks after a beat. 

“No.” Janet replies with no further explanation as they reach her room door. She opens it swiftly and faces Nico briefly. “Goodnight.” she says quickly before slipping inside. 

Nico stares at the space she’d just been in and shakes her head curiously before going to her own room two doors down.

* * *

The guard pulls her roughly and Lucy winces. 

“I need to see the doctor. I think you broke my rib.”

The guard smiles, “Good.” She pushes her forward. 

“Wow, you are such a flirt.” Lucy says with a pained wink.

The guard frowns, “you are shameless” she says harshly. 

They continue walking past the kitchen. Lucy eyes the women working inside, ideas forming in her mind. 

“How do I work in there? I’ll cook you dinner. I can do crazy things with a carrot” she asks with a smirk.

“Can you scrub potatoes?” the guard asks her with the quirk of an eyebrow as they continue towards the latrines. 

“Yes.”

“You can scrub a toilet then.”

Lucy tuts, “You just want to see me bending over.”

The guard scoffs and shoves her into the latrines. “You know me so well” she adds with a fake smile before walking away. 

“I really need to see the doctor!” Lucy shouts at her retreating form. 

Lucy looks beside her to the other woman on bathroom duty. She’s a bit older, very pale and has her head wrapped in a scarf, a long thin scar running across her face. “Do you speak English?”

“Yes” she responds. 

“It’s easier if you swizzle it.”

The woman eyes her curiously, “You’ve done this before?”

“Oh, yes. Have you been to the doctor here?” Lucy asks as they continue working on the toilets. 

“I have cancer and he has only seen me once. You have to be actually dying to go” she says with a sigh. 

Lucy bangs frustratedly on the floor. 

“Why are you here?” the woman asks.

“I stole some hats. Why are you here?”

“I’m spontaneously violent.”

Lucy eyes her for a moment before smiling gently, “Mm. We will be friends.”

“Okay”

* * *

As promised, Vladimir arranged for Nico and Janet to be picked up and transported to the prison. 

They’re escorted by guards down several hallways before entering a small conference-styled room where Jonah waits for them.

A loud buzzer sounds as the door shuts behind them. 

“I’ll be listening from the other room,” he says as they approach the table. 

“Ah” Janet replies, setting her coat down. 

“It’s better with just the women.” 

Nico nods and sits down in the seat next to Janet as he exits. 

The door buzzes again as he exits and once more as a young brunette enters on crutches. 

“Hello Julie” Janet greets her in Russian. 

Julie takes a shaky breath before taking a seat across from them. Her green eyes shifting between looking down at the table and looking back towards the agents before her. 

“Do you speak English?” Janet asks her. 

She nods cautiously. 

“Good. We don’t have much time, so I’m getting straight to the point. My name is Janet Stein. This is my colleague Nico Minoru. We’re from the British Intelligence Service. We want to ask you some questions about your recent trip to Bletcham. We want to know everything you can tell us about who you’re working for. You may take some seconds to think what your terms are. We don’t have long, and we’re not going to accept anything silly” She concludes clasping her hands over the table. 

“Terms?” Julie asks looking at them.

“What can we give you? We can secure your release from this prison. We can have you transported back to the UK, where you’ll be protected. If you give us information” Janet clarifies. 

“I don’t trust you” Julie states blankly. 

“Fair enough,” Janet shrugs, “We don’t trust you either. So how about we strike a deal? You give us something now so that we can verify you. If the information proves useful, then, in a few days, we’ll have you removed from the prison. We’ll take you to the embassy and continue the interview there.”

Julie nods in agreement and allows her guarded features to relax a bit.  _ She’s a pretty girl, _ Nico thinks,  _ all things considered _ . Light bruises adorn her face, her eyes seem tired, dark circles underneath them. It was astounding that she was still alive Nico thinks as she takes in the bright pink scar along her neck. 

“Who do you work for?” Janet asks her. 

Julie nervously looks around the room as she takes in a shuddering breath. 

When Nico senses that she might not easily answer that question here, she asks some of her own. 

“Tell us about Karolina. Were you friends when you were here together? Did you help her escape?” 

Julie looks down at the table. “It was supposed to be me.”

“What was?” Janet asks.

“He was meant to take me. She wanted to meet him. To be sure I was safe. Because she loved me. But she - I don’t know what she did to him, but he took her. If you want to know about Karolina, you need to find - “ she’s suddenly interrupted by the door buzzing loudly.

Jonah enters the room, “Sorry, the sound is not working in there,” he points towards the other room. “Please, carry on.” He moves to stand at the other end of the room. 

“It’s okay,” Janet says as she noticies, Julie’s eyes widening in panic. 

“He’s with us. We need to find who? Who do we need to find?” she prods.

“Tell us” Janet coaxes. 

“Xavin” Julie says as she coughs.

“Xavin who?”

“The reason she was here in the beginning.” Julie adds.

“Julie, Xavin who?”

“Tell them” Jonah commands. 

* * *

Voices overlap around them as dogs bark in the distance. 

Lucy and her newfound friend walk absently around the gated yard, a feeble attempt to enjoy their “outside” time. 

Her eyes scan her surroundings, but she stops as she sees a very familiar face. 

Julie is there, on the other side of the fence, wobbling painfully on crutches as she’s escorted by guards. 

She turns suddenly towards her companion, “Do it.”

“No.” is her almost immediate reply with a short sigh. 

“Please, you are my friend now.” Lucy pleads. 

The other woman scoffs, “I will get shit for it.”

Lucy grabs her by the shoulders, “No, I started it. I provoked you. Say I told everyone you were a big tasty lady but your fanny smells.” 

She smiles as she recovers from the swift punch thrown at her face.

“There she is. Come on, you giant ball sack!” she says as she wipes the gushing blood from her face.

The woman continues to hit her, each blow revealing a more and more bloodied face.

A guard rushes in, pulling her assailant away as she grips onto the chain-link fence with a smirk.

* * *

Nico shakes her head as she sits next to Janet in the backseat of Jonah’s car.

“That was immoral”

Janet quirks an eyebrow as she turns towards the other woman, “What? Offering her something we can’t give her. You don’t know what I’m able to offer her.”

“I do” his reply comes from the driver’s seat. 

Janet scoffs, “You certainly don’t.”

“It doesn’t matter. He won’t do it,” Jonah says plainly as Vladimir approaches the car.

He swiftly gets into the passenger seat, “Make it quick. People are asking why you’re here.”

“Julie’s information. She won’t give it up without immunity and safe passage back to the UK,” Janet replies. 

“You are joking” Vladimir says with a tight chuckle. 

“She has names. I know it” Nico adds.

Vladimir turns towards Janet, “What is the name of this organization?”

Janet and Nico share a look, Janet giving her the permission to reveal the exclusive information. 

“The Twelve” Nico replies. 

“This is good for you, Vlad. We’d have a lot more if you let us get her out immediately. Trust me” Janet prods. 

He chuckles a bit, then scoffs, “You lost me at ‘trust me,’ I’m sorry. I cannot sanction it and you know that” he replies firmly. 

Janet sneers at him, ‘You don’t have the authority?”

He bristles almost immediately at the remark, “Do not test the limits of my authority, Janet - and I will not test yours.”

He scoffs loudly. “I hope you appreciate our help so far. We will look into everything from now and update you. The girl stays in Russia” he says with a tone of finality before exiting the vehicle as quickly as he came. 

Jonah shakes his head, “What is the phrase in your country?”

Nico turns from the window, “Don’t be a smug asshole.”

Jonah laughs, “Yes, that’s it.”

Janet nods. “He’ll change his mind. We just need to find something for him to nibble on”, she says pensively as Jonah starts the car again.

* * *

Lucy watches as the stern-faced blonde man enters the room quietly. He takes a seat opposite her, eyes peering over thick gold-rimmed frames and scanning her face. 

“Well you were certainly committed to getting yourself in here. Jonah said you prefer English these days. You look fresh for a dead woman.” 

Lucy smirks and chuckles lightly. 

“Do you remember the room they call ‘The Hole’”? 

“Vividly” she replies. 

“Good. When the job is complete, get yourself put into ‘The Hole’ for 9:00 PM tomorrow. If my memory serves me well, it won’t be hard for you. Jonah will meet you.”

He reaches towards one of his desk drawers, opening it and pulling out small knife. 

She sighs as she examines it, “I suppose I’m keeping this up my ass, hmm?”

He shakes his head at her “I’m not going to help you with that bit. No”

She sighs again as she turns it over in her hands. 

* * *

Nico stares silently at her drink, fingers absently twirling her staw.

“Just say it” Janet sighs.

“I don’t like Vlad either.”

“Oh? No, he’s a good one.” she replies, taking a sip of her own cocktail.

Nico turns to her, “Really? Then how can we convince him? I mean, he’s got to have something we can, you know, tug on, so to speak.”

“Leave him to me” Janet says as she places her cocktail back on the bar and turns towards Nico. 

“Let me tell you about Vlad. In the '70s, a journalist called Mary Kenny was found tangled in the arms of a former cabinet member of the Ugandan government. The Private Eye printed it.

And the phrase "Ugandan discussions" quickly took on a more illicit meaning. Let's just say that Vlad and I had one or two "Ugandan discussions" ourselves. I spent the whole time thinking it was some sort of honey trap.He spent the whole time thinking the same. Which, if anything, just made the whole thing more thrilling.I know.We're not the most obvious match. But the man is extraordinarily agile. And now? Well, I discovered a little sort of plutonium plot some years ago. And the rumor mill thought he'd given me the information. He hadn't, but I had to protect my source, so I let them believe it. He's never forgiven me” she finishes with another swig of her drink. 

Nico hides her surprise behind another sip of her cocktail, “Hmm. Who was your source, then?”

“Jonah. No one believed it wasn’t Vlad. Poor agile Vlad” Janet chuckles. 

“So you slept with both?” Nico asks incredulously. 

Janet smirks in response. 

“God, I’m - I’m sorry I don’t like your boyfriends” she laughs. 

“I’m sorry you don’t like yours,” Janet responds around a sip of bitter liquid. 

Nico laughs indignantly and the sound is awkward even to her own ears. 

“What?” she faces Janet almost flabbergasted.

Janet waves her off, “It’s quite alright. You can still love him. For me it was always the ones I liked the least, I loved the most” she takes another sip of her near empty drink, eyes focused away towards the distant end of the bar. “Maybe it was the fact that I loved them that made me dislike them so much,” she adds after a beat. 

She sighs as Nico remains silent, “Oh dear. I’m bordering on the profound. Bed.” Janet moves to get up, wrapping her scarf more firmly around her neck. 

“Bed” Nico repeats. 

“We’re done today. You just about held your nerve.” Janet replies before heading towards the hotel rooms. 

Nico watches her go before moving towards a quiet corner in the bar and dialing a number on her cellphone. 

“Chase, it’s me. Have you found anything on Xavin yet?”

“Hey. Yes. She is the wife of the man Karolina murdered and um - castrated six years ago” he says awkwardly. 

“Okay. Um I also need you to look into any private correspondence between uh Jonah Gibborim and a member of Russian intelligence here. Anything on him at all really”

“And who?” he asks as he begins to type onto his computer. 

“And your mother,” Nico adds. She can hear as the clicks come to a halt. 

She cringes though he can’t see her and offers a lame, “Sorry” before thanking him and hanging up. 

* * *

Lucy turns the knife in her sleeve as she slowly moves in the lunch line. She knows Julie is serving plates and can feel the anticipation coursing through her veins. 

Her blood boils when she feels a flick against the side of her head. Her ‘friend’ is by her side and looking to start another fight for fun apparently. 

She rolls her eyes, “No. Not now.”

The woman continues flicking her with a small smile on her face.

Lucy drops the knife from her sleeve and the woman glances down with a grin before grabbing it hastily. 

Lucy rolls her eyes again because of course this happens when it’s her turn to finally see Julie. 

Julie looks up from the serving plate to find Lucy’s eyes boring into her own.

“Nyet!” she says as she trembles in fear. 

“Uh, yes.” Lucy replies as Julie attempts to climb towards the back of the kitchen and put distance between them. 

Lucy turns towards her ‘friend’, “Give it to me” but her ‘friend’ won’t part with the knife so easily. 

Julie hurriedly throws kitchen objects and foods towards her and Lucy can feel her patience running thinner and thinner. 

“Give it to me now!” she screams at her accomplice, but the woman just sneers, “no!”

Lucy rears back and punches her in the face before climbing over the lunch counter and into the kitchen, the other woman following suit shortly afterwards. 

Julie hobbles further and further into the kitchen as she pleads with the guards, “No! She wants to kill me!”

Lucy follows her, pointing towards her knife-wielding friend behind her, “No, she wants to kill me!”

The guard looks between them all, “which one?”

Lucy turns and throws a melon into her ‘friend’, “This witch” she replies.

The woman furiously charges towards her with the knife, “You are not a good friend!” 

In a flash, Lucy grabs onto the assailant’s hand and pushes her hand and the knife into the guard. 

The guard stumbles back, blood spewing onto the floor below as the now knifeless woman stares confusedly. Lucy tucks the knife away into her sleeve, backing away slowly. 

“Look what you’ve done..” she says towards the other woman.

Others begin shouting around the kitchen room.

“Oh My God! Look what she did! Be Careful. She has a knife” Lucy says as she watches another guard walk slowly towards her friend. 

The guards steadily approaches the stunned woman, “It’s okay. Count the numbers to help you calm down. 7...6…” 

As the woman shakily repeats the numbers, Lucy advances towards the guard and aggressively smacks her butt before turning her around and plunging the knife deeply into her abdomen. 

When the guard slumps to the ground, she reaches down and takes her set of keys before walking off and out of the kitchen leaving the remaining spectators shocked into silence, the only noise coming from the blaring alarms sounding off throughout the building. 

* * *

“Thank you for coming. Excuse the meeting place” Nico says with a nervous glance as she stands leaning on the rails of the modern pedestrian bridge. She pulls her black overcoat closer to her against the bitter wind before resuming her position. There’s a small park below them; what would be a beautiful small expanse of green between hulking grey slabs of buildings if everything weren’t so dead, of course. 

Vladimir shakes his head with a small smile, “It’s right between my son’s school and the office, so it’s lovely.” He chuckles lightly, “Very Russian” he adds. 

He watches her closely, noting how her eyes shift somewhat nervously. When she doesn’t speak he asks, “Janet doesn’t know you’re here, does she?”

Nico releases the breath she’d been holding and steels her gaze at him as she responds, “I need Julie.”

“I can’t give her to you.”

She sighs in frustration and faces out towards the park below them, “This organization tried to murder my colleague. Karolina broke into my house. She didn’t kill me. She connected with me. I believe she wants a way out of this thing. Same as Julie. These are young women manipulated into this job. Julie means nothing to anyone in there. Out here, she could be the key to The Twelve.”

She turns back to Vladimir, her eyes pleading almost desperately, “Give her to us, and we will release your sleeper agent who helped Frank and, I swear, if we get a lead, it is yours to chase. Yours to own. You can be the heroes.”

He chuckles sardonically, “I don’t give a shit about that.”

“I just want the girls” Nico replies. 

“Why?” he asks with furrowed brows. 

Nico’s mind flashes with images of blonde hair, perfectly smooth skin, the hand on her throat; her heart starts to beat erratically. 

“Because one of them is a little prick and she’s keeping me up at night,” she grinds out. 

“I don’t care how you sleep,” Vladimir says as he pushes away from the railing and starts to turn around, “You’re wasting my time and yours. Good bye.” 

Nico’s eyes widen and she knows she shouldn’t bring this up, but it’s her only chance. 

“Wait! I know it wasn’t you who told Janet about the plutonium. I know who her source was. And I can prove it. He’s one of yours,” she says quickly. 

Vladimir turns back towards her, his interest renewed. 

* * *

The alarms are still blaring within the prison walls when Julie is roughly shoved into her cell. She pleads for the guards to listen to her, pleads for her life, but it all falls on deaf ears as the lock turns into place. This was it, she was going to die before ever knowing true freedom. 

She bites back tears as she grabs a small notebook and pen from her desk. She begins writing and clenches her teeth to stifle her groans of pain, her broken arm shaking heavily as she fights to scribble the words out. She folds it gently before writing her name, sending a small prayer to whomever was listening, that Nico Minoru would receive this somehow. 

  
  


She shoves it into her pocket and turns slowly when she hears the creak of her mattress. 

Lucy slowly crawls out from underneath. 

“Need a hand?”

Julie’s breathing quickens as tears continue to stream from her eyes.

“I can get us out of here” she says as she backs up towards the door.

Lucy smiles as she approaches, “I’m good, thanks.”

“The British, they are helping me. I’m going to give them everything,” Julie pleads.

“You have something to give them? What? Jonah?” Lucy asks pointedly. 

Julie nods, “He’s working with the British. He’s helping them get me out… She’s going to help me. She wants to help you, too. She was asking about you.” 

Lucy’s features shift.  _ She _ was here. “Who? Was it an Asian woman with amazing hair?”

Julie whimpers before nodding to affirm her response. 

Lucy places her hand against the door, backing Julie into it. 

“What did you tell her?” she asks, eyes boring into Julie’s, an excited gleam reflected within them. 

“I could have shot you. In England, but I didn’t… I told her to speak to Xavin.”

Lucy smiles gently, “Okay.”

Julie’s sobs intensify as Lucy brings her closer to her, holding her in a hug. The action is startling but Julie knows that she’s playing with her, that in the end, this is a goodbye. 

“Are you going to kill me?” she asks hesitantly. 

“Yes” Lucy responds, still holding her close. 

“Now?... How?” Julie continues. 

Lucy pulls the concealed knife from her pocket as she pulls away from Julie before responding, “With this, I guess…”

Julie’s eyes flash in alarm as Lucy continues while turning towards the barred window, “Maybe we should hang you…” 

Julie quickly bends down and shoves the letter under the door and into the hallway before Lucy turns to her again. 

Lucy approaches her pensively, “But I do have to be quick...” 

Julie flinches as Lucy closes in on her, the knife plunging into her swiftly. The blood pools out beneath her and onto Lucy’s hands and coverall. 

Outside, a guard bends down to retrieve the letter before noticing the crimson liquid flowing from beneath the door. 

The alarms blare loudly as he opens the door to find a smiling Lucy standing over Julie’s slumped form. 

She puts her hands up before shouting, “Take me to the hole!”

* * *

The door locks behind her and she sits on the ground with a smile. Jonah should be there any minute to finally take her away from this awful place. She listens as the buzzer sounds and quickly gets up to face the door. When it doesn’t open, she bangs her closed fist against it. 

“Hello? Let me out. I did it. I know I have a visitor. Let me out!”

The doctor from before appears at the small square window. He takes a peek before opening the food slot. Lucy crouches towards the opening, eyes searching for that familiar face before settling on the doctor. “Where is he?”

The doctor stares back at her quizzically, “Who?”

“Jonah” she responds suspiciously. 

“Jonah, who?” the doctor questions blankly. 

She stares in astonishment as he shuts the slot closed and leaves. 

She starts to panic, her breathing becomes erratic as she looks at the cool concrete walls surrounding her. 

She pounds her fists against the heavy metal door, wailing without end.

“Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!”

But she's met with nothing but silence and she knows this time, she really fucked up. 


End file.
